Mallory's Camera

When I went to visit Black Chicken in the morning, she was brooding on her eggs. When I went to see her in the afternoon, I couldn't lure her out of the henhouse for anything. Was she mourning her companion? Or did she remember the predator that snagged Brown Chicken?

I fed her corn tortillas, & she crouched down to let me pet her.

Back at the casa, I beseeched Molly Mabel Cat: Communicate with the spirit of Brown Chicken! Let me know how she is. Let her know that I miss her.

'Cause that's the way I roll.

###$

Meanwhile, I have been busy, busy, busy.

TaxBwana was not quite as much of a slog as it was on Monday, mainly because my clients were very nice, and I ignored the other tax preparers.

And once I got home, Adrienne's little campaign manager Brian—an impossibly fresh-faced senior at Northeastern University in Boston—wanted to Zoom.

He's written a platform statement, which I will incorporate into Adrienne's website, although that, too, has been a slog—mainly because I'm supposed to be building it in SquareSpace—a platform I know nothing about. Hitherto, my website design experience has been confined primarily to WordPress websites and old-time HTML docs powered by CSS engines.

SquareSpace is one of those out-of-the-box website solutions. It does have customization options, but they are buried four layers down. SquareSpace would prefer you to use one of their AI-powered templates: cookie cutter templates, seeped in ubiquity. My mind rebels against them. I suppose I need to start thinking in terms of utility, not originality: There's no reason at all why Adrienne's website needs to be creative.

And also I need to hunt down a couple of SquareSpace tutorials on YouTube.

###

I'm applying, too, for a summer job as Director or Assistant Director for Gardiner village's summer recreation program, which means hunting down references & customizing a resume from all my volunteer gigs (since I haven't held a real job in going on 15 years now.)

I went through the usual Who would recommend me for anything? self-abasement ritual, but, of course, Marty & Flo (TaxBwana) and Ellen (Vision of Wallkill) are leaping all over themselves to be references, so, you know, I don't quite understand why I put myself through unnecessary anxiety. Some part of me must like anxiety.

I have a fair number of writing clients still, so strictly speaking, I'm not desperate for the $$$.

But times are troubled-er & troubled-er.

Diversification seems like a prudent strategy.

Things are as bad as they could possibly be— Well, that's not true. My cats could be dead. My kids could be dead. I could be living under a totalitarian dictatorship. (Oh, wait... 😀)

The biggest source of anxiety today: A client is late with the hefty, multi-thousand-dollar check, which I need to pay off accumulated life expenses & debts. This is ever the bane of the freelancer's existence, of course.

I have a long-term relationship with this particular client, and I am 90% certain they will pay. In moods like this, though, that 10% uncertainty sprouts a phantom zero.

###

Also, Sue turns out to be completely undoable. Just out of control when we went to tour the house together. The house itself... In some ways, it is wonderful with the original pinewood flooring intact—



—and even a few of the 19th century fixtures:



If you've ever wondered how they managed to light those big old houses with candles in the 18th & 19th centuries (though, of course, they also used oil lamps), they put those candles behind a kind of convex glass to amplify their light and lessen the drafts. This is a detail most period movies overlook, by the way.

But there were only one and a half bathrooms for all four bedrooms. And the kitchen counters' formica was covered in singe marks. And there are indentured servants living in a walled-off portion of the basement, right where the slave quarters used to be! (The owners of the house also operate New Paltz's only Indian restaurant! The indentured servants work in that Indian restaurant. They do not drive, and they do not speak English, and since I only saw one electric meter for the whole house, presumably its renters pay the indentured servants' utility bills.)

So, you know: Definite drawbacks.

###

But even if the house was perfect, Sue is just a mess.

Kept badgering me to sign a lease in April. After the 20th time I told her, No, began texting me, What date in March do we tell Assief [the landlord] we have know we’re accepted in May to give our landlords notice?

WTF??

Why would Assief care? I texted. He wants to rent it out in April. We have no leverage, and we're not negotiating.

It's not about Assief! she texted back furiously, and I thought, Then why are you bringing his name up?

But this morning was just the worst.

Apparently, she tried friending me on FB under the name "Elaine Skye"—

WTF 2.0

—and began instant-messaging me long, incomprehensible screeds that I did not answer & that she then got mixed up with my phone texts, so that at six o'clock this morning, she started barraging me with phone texts, I’d rather not hop back and forth unless you prefer Messenger for some reason—

I have NEVER communicated with you on Messenger, I texted back.

Again—she texted—do you have THIS thread—look at my contact name. Pat how did you find THIS thread?

###

Maybe the coffin nail was when she called me "Pat."

I hate being called "Pat."

I like to think, though, though, that my self-preservation instincts finally came out the victor in that Jacob's-ladder wrestling match with desperation.

This woman may not be crazy in the true psychiatric sense, but she is functionally crazy.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO.

Sue, this isn't going to work out, I texted. I wish you well in your housing search.

So, now I am back to Square 1.

###

And Icky just returned for his five-days-on with the Spawn.

Two-faced little ingratiator that I am, I listened sympathetically for half an hour while he complained about all his problems with the Spawn and how horrible the Spawn's mother is. (She isn't.)

###

And I haven't even begun to write about how every single electronic device I own began acting funny yesterday, forgetting their passwords & otherwise malfunctioning & requiring many, many hours of workaround—both before & after TaxBwana where I had the nastiest, snarliest clients ever.

Did you get HACKED? RTT asked.

Hmmm, I said. That didn't even occur to me. I assumed it was all due to Mercury in retrograde.

###

This would all be a comic novel except it is happening to me-ee-eee.