Tire-d.

So they're building this big new medical building in town, which makes us look Dynamic and Full of Industry, except when I think about it all it means is A) everyone's getting old; and B) this kind of growth is essentially a transfer of money from the government to the giant corporation that provides the healthcare, even more so when Obamacare craters and we have nationalized healthcare.

And it's probably how I got a flat tire.

I keep getting these, and it's not like I'm driving off-road or going up on the marbles while taking the turns too fast. I've had three in the last year. One was just because the tires had about 40,000 hard miles on them and the tread was looking more pancake than waffle. The other two seemed to be crap I picked up from driving down the debris-filled road by the enormous construction site.

Had to drop the car off yesterday morning (boot on the axle, tire in the hatch) as the mechanics were all busy helping cars that had gotten sick over the weekend. At first it looked like the long, thin gash along the tread meant that the tire couldn't be patched, but then the owner of the place got it to work. If it's still properly inflated when I go to drive the car this morning, then it's all jake. Otherwise, straight to the tire store where I bought the damn thing in the spring.

These are the kinds of things that have been going on for weeks--endless frustrating and costly problems that never get resolved. In fact, the car, with spare on it, just sat at the house for a week because I spent so much time home waiting for the mysterious vanishing contractor (more on that another time) that I never had a chance to do anything about the tire. Had to use the wife's car all week.

But that's not the only reason my personal Wheel of Fortune is feeling a little flat.

We've also had dogs being sick as dogs. The little guy was horrid but straightforward---a week of antibiotics almost made it go away; still took a few more days to get normal. The big guy had an illness of unidentified origin, two vet trips in two days, but it may have been just that he was getting too much thyroid medication. Hundreds of dollars and lost hours later, we're still not sure.

My bit to help pay for all this has been dreary, tiresome assignments, the kind of work you dream of turning down when you're a freelancer. No, no, I utterly refuse to work on that book, because it is repulsive and a force for evil and the writing sucks too. When you're a freelancer in my field, that's about all you can dream of, because no matter how good you are, the pay doesn't change. The work is undervalued. "Just get some idiot out of college to do it," is the cry from people who ought to know better.

No surprise that every night I have work-related dreams, dreams in which I'm looking for an office where I do something that I hope no one realizes I do not know how to do. I seem to be walking across the landscapes of strange cities a lot, and I'm often inappropriately dressed (though usually not nekkid). I wake up tired.

Maybe I'm just getting old. Google reminds us that today is the 434th anniversary of the inauguration of the Gregorian calendar. Boy, doesn't it just seem like yesterday?