Sunday, August 07, 2011

Hot Water

Happy and Laid Back


Where is the happiness?  For me I seem to often see the world as an outsider. A minority. No crowd to run with because I'm not doing what the crowd is running around about. 


I wake up happy, thrilled the sun has come up. I feel I should be up with it, so I often get up before the sunrise, just to watch the daylight unfold. I try to remain happy go lucky all day long, enjoying the simple day to day life. I get a little testy sometimes when I am moving at a slow pace and other's are urging me to HURRY UP!  


Super fast, super unhappy?  


Misery must love company and happiness is lonesome. Staying positive, shedding negative.  Staying away from negatives. It's not easy!  


Recently it was thrown in my face a few times, as if I had done something truly evil,  the accusation that I was so happy, I must be hiding something.  


Unhappy peope who aren't happy that I am happy, and they won't be happy until I am unhappy. 


Go figure. It's mind boggling to my addled brain. 


I think about my now deceased friend who lead a happy life for 7 decades. He had a smile on his face 99% of the time. I just can't recall his face at all,  without a smile on it.  He was my client for 10+ years in my first career and became one of my close friends.  When his wife decided to leave him, she remained my client too. Sadly she always looked miserable, he on the other hand, joked about the divorce, rolled his eyes, laughing and smiling while she continually tried to heap piles of misery on him, but it just seemingly bounced right off of him. 


He made a tremendous impact on me, to go through life happy go lucky, dealing with come what may. Sure I've been through a heap of recent troubles that turned my life upside down, but I just look at things as a challenge to make them better. Being miserable doesn't really help much. 


Change is frightening or it can be viewed as just another adventure!  


What happens with other people fight to pull you down, simply because you are happy?  Is there something wrong with being happy?


Boredom. When someone tells me they are bored, my jaw probably unintentionally flies open in shock. How can anyone possibly be bored in these exciting times we are living in?


Returning to America, I was looking forward to seeing my friend in person again. It had been years. I wanted to ask him, what made him go through life with a smile on his face, happy as can be. At what point did he start smiling and just never stopped?  


But alas, he perished unexpectedly, I never got to ask him. But I think of him often, his smiling face, his rolling eyes, when things went wrong and the way he just laughed about it all. 


Recently, a  man my age was flirting heavily with me. However, every few minutes he turned the conversation towards his wicked ex-wife and past marital woes. It was becoming a real downer for me.  Did he want to flirt with me or did he just want ears to listen to his tale of woe?  


Maybe the heat wave has made people a tad crazy. 


Seize life, enjoy the moment. I get a thrill out of mundane things that make up my daily life. 


The thrill of hot water. Recently through blood, sweat, tears and a few mumbled curse words, my friend helped me install a hybrid electric water heater. 


It didn't work. 


My friend left town.
Most RV's like mine come with propane only hot water. Mine was running through so much propane, that I was rarely using it. My propane tank is not removable, so I have to drive my wheel estate to a propane company to get topped off. Many propane companies will not deliver to RV's.  No idea why that is. 


Weeks later, a new kit arrived in the mail, I worked on a ridiculously hot day trying to change out the parts one by one, until the hot water heater suddenly sprang to life. By then I was soaked in sweat, as I had to work outside, then inside, then outside while the poor puppy tried to keep up with me. I think he learned a whole new language  from me, but by golly I had hot water. 


I was ecstatic!  I washed everything inside and out, me, the dog, the dishes, clothes, the ceiling. Yes, I washed most of the ceiling in my motorhome. A thankless job that no one is sure to notice except me. 


I kept mentioning my hot water to any and all that would listen. Finally some one gently reminded me that hot water had been around for decades, ever since running water became common in houses. I must be the last person in America to marvel over it. 


But looking back at my life, the past two and half  decades, I've not had steady hot water at all. I've lived months and years without hot water. Each time I finally had the sheer gift of hot water, I marveled at it, rejoicing in this new found luxury. 


I'm still excited about hot water. It's fun! 



Hurricanes and Hangovers and Other Tall Tales and Loose Lies from the Coconut Telegraph by Dear Miss Mermaid

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