Oh, Mercury retrograde. You are here, AGAIN. You have arrived on our collective doorsteps in all your messy glory. – Gala Darling

Communicating during Mercury retrograde is never a thing of beauty.  But this Merc turned ugly on June 5th, a day early of the calendar dates of some astrologers. And it took a long road to get to this almost deadly June retrograde that’s turned out to be life threatening. Yes, bad communications can be lethal.  We see in this sad fact in the news every day.  But this one hit home for me.  Literally home.

HOME SICK HOME

Back in October 2013 I rented a sweet little green concrete block house that had been built-in the 1950s to continue on extended assignment filming famed scientist Patrick Flanagan.  The house was built the same era I was born in and was totally renovated in 2012.  Same year I went to Antarctica to meditate on shifting the negativity of the Mayan calendar fears to making a change to human consciousness.

Indeed, it all seemed so perfect.  It was the first house in my rental hunt that I toured and I told the leasing agent I’d take it right on the spot.  Love at first sight for this sweet little place on a big 2 acres of land.  Looking for some company, having been used to sharing homes with roomies since 2009 when I was evicted in the depths of the Great Recession, I moved in with a beautiful Sedona psychic I’d met back in 2010 as my housemate.  She had a cute little dog.   I was in totally in love with the psychic, but she was clear had no such feelings for me.  Still I enjoyed her company, and the dog adored me like it was my own and so I was looking forward to a fun time-sharing a house with the beauty and pooch.

Ah, but it just did not work out.  For some reason the exquisitely sensitive soul, an extrovert to my introverted nature became very agitated hanging with me.  I learned an introverted type like me likes to socialize at home whereas an extrovert socialize in public and wants isolation at home.  So the psychic isolated herself in her part of the house, a later addition with its own HVAC and bath.  Lots of upsets, that seem like something out of rom-com in retrospect. led to us mutually parting ways after her sharing my Sedona paradise for only 10 weeks.  One day I came home from a long trip to help my brother find his new place in Florida and found I had the house to myself.

FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE

I decided to make it a meditation on living in such a secluded area of Sedona, the smallest city I’ve ever lived in since I was a kid.  My rental house has no visible neighbors and sits near the base of Sedona’s famed Chimney Rock and Thunder Mountain.  The ET energy here is epic and the alone time is important my guides say.  So I accepted my fate loneliness.

Strangely, even when I asked friends over things would fall through and my isolation went on and on.  For months on end I went on not even seeing a soul for weeks and months on end.  No matter how hard I tried to break it this was an alone time.

Brokenhearted about losing my housemate that I had a hopeless one-way crush on, I was loving my fortress of solitude in the chill of winter, and somehow doing the best behind the scenes social media of my life for famed inventor Dr. Flanagan. Who became not only my greatest clients ever, surpassing even the amazing Oprah, but a dear pal, when suddenly I became deathly ill with walking pneumonia.

A lot of people in Sedona were getting sick with their immune systems compromised by Juniper tree allergies.   So that’s what I figured was happening to me.  Though sick as a dog, I was somehow managing to do my work for the NewNeurophone project and making awesome videos of its inventor Patrick Flanagan, but this lung sickness would just not let go.  Breathing became a nightmare.  My eyes were blood-red and looked like two blue marbles floating in a sea of tomato juice.  Sickness is so unlike me.   At 61 I’ve only been in hospital once in my life.  Nothing’s ever made me sick long.  I’ve not even had cold since 2008.

But the skies here in AZ are filled with more chemtrails from jets than I’ve experienced anywhere in the world.  I had many chemtrail flu symptoms.  I was taking lots of Patrick Flanagan’s Megahydrate which profoundly battles chemtrail flu and radiation poisoning as THE product for our times.  Despite that, and downing lots of antibiotics and cough medicine, still I was near death many times with epic coughing fits.  No matter how much gunk I coughed up, I was not getting well.

BREATH OF FRESH AIR

It was looking like I’d have to take a break from the Flanagan account to co when I was blessed to have a new person come into my life as an assistant, Genevieve Munoz, a 27-year Cal Poly marketing grad.  Genevieve was able to pick up a significant part of my workload on the Neurophone project.  And so I was able to go on despite my sickness to giving Patrick the fine service he deserved.

As the weather warmed in March and the Juniper allergy season ended I started to get much better.   Still a lot of gunk remained in my lungs, breathing was still ragged.  I visited four different healers here in Sedona to knock this thing out to no avail.  I was stuck in sick land.

The weather warmed slowly.  It was a late spring for Sedona.  Finally as temps climbed into the 80s, I asked the landlord agent, who we’ll call Jerry, a sweet man in 70s with 40 years of managing rental homes for Sedona’s wealthy snow birds, how to turn on the rooftop based swamp cooler for the first time in my tenancy.  Swamp coolers Jerry would explain, work on evaporative cooling in the dry AZ climate and use a powerful fan to suck air through a wet filter.

After Jerry left, I followed his directions I sat down in my office to work.  No sooner did my butt hit the seat and I was attacked, no better word for it, by filth spewing from the powerful swamp cooler fan driven air vents.  My eyes, ears, throat and lungs all burned instantly.  I knew I was in for a total relapse into pneumonia if I did not get some antibiotics in me.

The Flanagan’s suggested a new doctor for me, a Dr. Haggard.  She’s the doctor of my dreams as she avoid pharmaceuticals when she can.  She gave me vitamins and the drugs I needed to heal faster, along with placing me on her nebulizer to open my air passages since I was wheezing like a 90 year-old emphysema victim.

I called Jerry the agent for the family trust and told him the filters on the HVAC obviously needed cleaning ASAP.  Jerry hesitated on the line and said timidly, “Well, I am going to have to get Bob from the family trust’s OK for that.”

DEADLY ANGER MEDITATION

Some background on the stubborn and cantankerous Bob, the landlord family trust member point person, and why Jerry was afraid to call him.   Bob’s a talented metal sculpture artist who is at war with his lawyer side.  Bob bullied Jerry for each and every repair that’s ever been done here, as the watchdog for the family trust owners.  I was Jerry’s first tenant he brought in for Bob.  And Jerry was losing spirit about the account with each harsh encounter with Bob.  Bob seemed a sweet man but there were buttons fixing the property that got pushed

“Sorry, Jerry, there’s no option here but for you to go to Bob for the OK.  My guess is this filter issue has been what’s been making me sick since I first started using the HVAC here in winter.”  I was greeted by Jerry’s silence and so I went on, ” I don’t get sick.  Please fix this, Jerry.  I think we’ve uncovered a serious health hazard.  Tell Bob the last thing he wants and I want is a lawsuit for negligence over my damaged health.”

A terse “OK” was Jerry response and he hung up.

As a few days passed, I could tune in on the grief Jerry was having heaped on him.  So I called him, “How’s it going, Jerry?  Talked to Bob?”

“Yeah, and got an earful.  He’s taking the matter to the trust,” said Jerry.

“Why must the trust vote on basic repairs?” I said, tension creeping into my voice.

“I agree it’s a pain in the ass.  But I’ll get ‘er done,” said Jerry trying to sound chipper.

After another round brow beating by Bob, the trust finally allowed Jerry to replace all the filters with two contractors.  One for the swamp cooler fixing and one for the AC fixing.  Swamp coolers, as it turns out, do not work in the humid weather.   So AZ homes use the two different systems for cooling.  Cool thing is swamp coolers gives you humidity.  A huge plus in the 0% humidity dryness of AZ.

New filters in place I again I happily turned on the swamp cooler and settled down to work at my desk.  Victory!   Wrong.  Again I was bombarded my filthy stuff spewing from the HVAC vents.   When I complained to the filter cleaning company worker as he packed up his stuff he said, “Filters are all clean.  Might just be calcium from the cooler forming and flying at you from the swamp cooler.”

“Nonsense.  This stuff is black and brown flying out the ducts, not white like calcium,” I said.  A few minutes later I watched in disappointment as the contractor drove off down the rocky primitive road to the house with that sad look men have on their face when they fail at fixing something important.

STEPHANIE SUTTON’S RADAR ALARM

The Flanagans were coming over for a filming session soon and the weather had cooled again so I put off dealing with the bad HVAC and bad service arrangement here that took a vote of the family trust  and overcoming the family watchdog Bob to get done.  It was early May now, and an unusually cool spring was working to my favor in punting on this HVAC thing.

After filming, Stephanie Sutton-Flanagan noticed the kitchen duct was very dirty as she got a glass of water and said, “Ken, you’ve been sick for so long.  I bet this filthy HVAC is what’s been hurting you.  Get your landlord to come in a clean the duct system before this kills you.”

“I’ve been trying, Steph, believe me.  For weeks.  The landlord here has an anger fit for any repairs he has to make,” I complained to Stephanie, happy to have fresh sympathetic ear.  “I once heard Bob screaming at Jerry over a measly $70 electrical outlet that needed repairing.”

Stephanie, as amazing as her husband Patrick Flanagan, scolded me in friendly fashion, “Then pay for the duct cleaning and get it fixed yourself.  This is your lungs.  You only get one pair!”

INTO THE BREACH

So I dove into solving the HVAC mystery again.  I called Jerry soon as Stephanie and the film crew left with her hubby Dr. Flanagan. “Jerry, sorry the HVAC here is still infecting me.  I respectfully request further repairs.”

Jerry groaned at the thought of another battle with Bob.  Who now in my mind’s eye wore a western black cowboy hat, and had a silver six-shooter he toyed with as Jerry trembled before him explaining why he failed his mission, fearing death any second.

To beat the growing heat as I waited for Jerry’s answer, I ran the swamp cooler wearing a breath mask.  I’d turn it on and then I sat on the patio outside working on Patrick’s media on my Ipad as the house cooled.  Then I’d put on my breath mask back on, go inside and turn off the HVAC.   My eyes still stung from whatever crap was coming out of the duct at high-speed.  Seems crazy in retrospect, but Bob was so insistent it was clean up in HVAC system I thought maybe I was having some sort of allergy reaction to chemtrails or pollen getting sucked into the house. Such was my faith in Bob, who though a cranky cuss seemed an honorable man who had even built me a beautiful mailbox when I came here.

Then one May day I found a huge piece of brown filth laying on my kitchen floor and more big hunks of filth in my kitchen fruit bowl!  I ran out to the patio and shouted,”BOB! YOU SUCK AS LANDLORD!”  As my words echoed into the red rocks of Sedona, I was amazed how little of the old rage that used to burn in my veins I felt despite this travesty.  Yes, I was happy to be properly angry.  Justified.  We need some anger to take care of ourselves.  It’s out-of-place old super anger of repressed childhood wrongs that vents out at stressed times that makes fools of us.  I thanked Bob for showing me this and went back inside to call Jerry.  No answer.

DEADLY DESTRACTIONS

Busied by a crushing work schedule and severe family troubles from my brother who ended up in a Florida jail and who still sits in a cell there as I write, I let Jerry slide for two weeks in getting Bob’s ok to clean the ducts.  I finally called one hot day to see why these repairs were not happening.  Jerry said nervously, ” Bob stands by his opinion the ducts are clean.”

“Clean?!  With all the filthy flying?!  Opinion?!  There’s no opinion here, Jerry, except mine that you guys are not giving me a livable house.  One cannot live in AZ without AC.  Fix it,” I said calmly as I could about this self-serving “opinion” of Bob’s.

“I hear you, Ken.  I’ve never had as tough a client Bob.  But my hands are tied,” said Jerry sadly.

“Bob lives right next door, Jerry.  Why doesn’t he just walk over and see this hazardous HVAC for himself?” I groused, blood rushing to my face at this harmful denial of reality.  “Does he think I am imagining these chunks of brown filth?”

“Uh, um.  Sorry, Ken, you know how Bob is. Ha.  Lawyers,” Jerry lamely offered.

“Heck with this BS.  What were the estimates to clean the ducts you got for Bob to OK, Jerry?”

“Anywhere from $300 to $350, ” said Jerry.

“$350 max.  That’s all and Bob and his trust freaking refuses?” I asked, amazed at Bob’s stupidity given the legal exposure to my health he was racking up, giving me an open and shut case for litigation.

“Yep, ” said Jerry.

To back up, I admit I lost my temper a little with Jerry early in the lease.  I blew my top over a fire hazard that was not getting fixed in timely fashion.  I realized had sunk to Bob’s level of bullying the gentle Jerry to get things done.  A way I’d made millions doing in the 80s and 90s.

But I didn’t go there again today with Jerry, despite weeks of complaining and the family trust run around.  Though I am sure the deep indignation I was feeling about Bob’s total lack of disregard for my safety and health was apparent in my calm voice. That’s how I write good screen dialogue.  A character seldom directly expresses his thoughts.  Here I was a character in my own real-life horror story.  Instead of yelling at Jerry as Bob was doing I gently said, “Give me the OK, Jerry, and I’ll call the contractor and have the work done on my nickel.  But let Bob know if the contractor finds something up there that’s been making me sick I want an offset on my rent.”

Jerry happily agreed that was a fair thing, I assume given I was suffering so many health issues and this was a way out.

VISIT FROM A BROTHER SON

On Memorial Day weekend Bob’s son came by the house unexpectedly to fix the landscaping.   Heavy Sedona winds had almost toppled two large cypress trees.  I’d propped these beauties up with a pick axe and shovel.  Items I’d bought recently to help my lost mystic housemate bury her little Yorky that had died suddenly of a heart attack in her arms.  As we reconnected over the loss of her dog, I brought my former housemate up to date.  Something I was required to do as Bob had refused to let her off the lease.  This was after the fact overruling Jerry who said it was OK.  Yeah, this Bob guy was biting at my peace of mind constantly, like a snake in paradise.

I told my former housemate how lucky she was to have been intuitive enough to lock herself off from the part of the house with a defective HVAC system and leave.  We wondered over lunch recently if her delicate Yorky was killed by some sort of black mold that might be up there.  A scary sad thought indeed as the pooch was only seven and so precious.

Bob’s son, I sensed, was afraid of talking to me for fear of backlash from his dad.  But I liked the young man.  He reminded me of my own son about his age: a big young man with a soft heart that’s estranged from me as I used to be temperamental like Bob.  Hey, I did only have a father who was a drill sergeant dad for fathering lessons.

Though I was never psychically abusive to my boy like my alcoholic father who was the bane of my childhood, almost killing me several times with severe beatings, I was far too tough on my boy and his little sis verbally.  Indeed, I had no idea words can hurt as much as the belt I was beat with as a kid of the 50s and 60s all too often.   I saw this fear of a verbally stern father like I had been in my 20s and 30s, so long ago, reflected anew in Bob’s son’s worried eyes.  I am pleased I treated Bob’s grown kid with extra kindness that I hope ripples back to my son in Chicago through earth’s energy field.

After Bob’s son finished with the landscape repair I offered him a bottle of some of Patrick  Flanagan’s Megahydrate for he and his cute female companion.  She had been coughing in the truck as she waited for Bob’s son to finish.   The Sedona Slide Fire had been raging and 20,000 acres were aflame only 4 miles away.   My lungs were really having a hard time with the smoke inhalation and chemtrails on top of the HVAC issues.  Seeing I was not irate, despite the neglect I was suffering with at his family trust’s house, Bob’s kid accepted when I asked him to take personal look at the HVAC problem and the hunks of filth the swamp cooler was dislodging.

Bob’s son took one shocked look at the filthy duct that his father had been denying was dirty and offered to come back in few weeks to clean out the dirty duct himself.  I appreciated young man’s offer but I could not wait that long.  I explained it was simply getting too hot for my patio/breath mask routine to work and live in the house without a quick fix.  Summer was making an end to my flexibility.

Deeply moved, almost to tears by Bob’s sons offer to clean out the duct, I waved bye from the drive as the big pickup truck left down the rocky road, feeling like this was my own son driving off with his wife and the twins born a few months ago I’ve not been invited to see.  Not even on a Father’s day trip I made without any promises of seeing my two kids who became estranged over the tipping point when I began connecting to ET from other galaxies and dimensions in meditation.

HVAC MYSTERY DEEPENS AFTER THE JUMP

Seeking to purify myself to heal my sick body and atone for a brother who had been arrested on charges of animal cruelty for beating up his new Florida puppy, I gave up eating meat at this time.   A powerful message from the ET Ohom had come through directing me to do my best to become an enlightened eater and shun the meat of the cruel corporate farms.  A sad reality I’d learned about at the Illuminfate Film festival in a film called “Specism” showed me the deep suffering of our fellow creatures of this world.

4 years ago when first meeting Ohom, a 7 foot tall being, who looks like a blue angel might if evolved from an insect race, I would have poo pooed Ohom as a figment of my imagination.  But even though I hold the paradox belief that this all still might be part of my amazing imagination, I can’t deny the wisdom it contains.   And here I was suffering, like Gaia, at the hands of a landlord operating out of integrity.  It all fits.

GESUNDHEIT

A few days later, June 4, the HVAC contractor Jerry has okay-ed, one with the funny name of Gesundheit Duct Cleaning Services, that I had to hire myself to do the landlord’s job, arrived and went to work.  No sooner did the three duct cleaning workers get started, however, when the foreman came to me in my office, his tan face drooped in worry, and told me, “Sorry we have to quit.”

“Huh?” was all I could think to say.

He showed me why and my blood went cold as he said,” The photo is of the filth our duct cleaning machine pulled out in mere seconds.  Man. when we starting pulling out all this dark junk, could even have some black mold, we had to stop.  Sorry, Mr. Sheetz.  But I’m knocking $70 off the price for needing to halt the job before it’s clean up there.”

A $70 discount for a health hazard still left behind hardly seemed fair, but I was in shock and wrote a check for $230. Grateful at last this mystery was finally solved of what had been slowly killing me.

The contractor, who I could tell was a total pro, as I’ve built over a million of square feet of construction before becoming a filmmaker, then invited me to take a photo of the inside of the duct work.

“Yikes!” I shouted.  “Looks like something out of freaking Freddy Kruger movie up there!” Outraged about Bob telling me the ducts were clean and for my buying it.

To show Bob how wrong he was, I took this other photo with my Iphone as the foreman explained.  “The duct runs on the roof outside of the house.  So the sun has burnt up the insulation.  It’s flaking and rotting to pieces and that’s what’s be flying around your home whenever you turn on the HVAC.  It just took the velocity of the swamp cooler to make it freaking obvious.  Good thing you kept bitching.  Landlord needs to fix this by AZ law or you can vamoose.”

“But I don’t want to vamoose,” I said sadly knowing I might be forced to as I put the foreman on the phone with Jerry.  The pro carefully explained to Jerry, as my heart sank, that the entire duct to the kitchen was contaminated.

I excused myself from the Gesundheit foreman to talk to Jerry.  “Jesus, this keep getting worse, Ken!  Bob assured me those ducts were cleaned just before you moved in.  This is all wrong.”

I could hear the fear and panic in Jerry’s voice and tried to calm him, “Jerry, you need to call Bob, stand up to his denial of reality and get him in touch personally with the contractor.  This is irrefutable evidence of why I’ve been getting sick.  I don’t want a lawsuit.  I want this fixed and hopefully I get well.  And tell Bob he will need to fix this for the next tenant if not for me.”

MERCURY RETROGRADE MADNESS

The next day, eve of the June Mercury Retrograde, Jerry dropped by and asked to see contaminated duct firsthand.  Jerry was determined to to the bottom of this mess.  I was excited.  My HVAC nightmare was perhaps at an end!!  Jerry carefully examined my filthy samples tucked in little clear sandwich bags from the duct, looked at the photos and went up on the roof,  When he was satisfied I had a legitimate gripe about this HVAC debacle, Jerry regretfully said, “Bob is still saying there’s no problem with the HVAC in your house rental.”

“What?” I said in a whisper of shock.

Jerry patted me on the shoulder, the way a friend would and said, “I’m sorry.  I’m resigning effectively today, Ken.  My reputation as a manager of 40 years is at stake.”

I wanted to say, “Hang in there and let’s get this fixed, Jerry.”  But I had heard Bob screaming at Jerry over the phone.  The amazing artist that Bob is lost out to the lawyer Bob is.  He was stonewalling me.  Forcing me to leave.  He was angry at my justified complaint and being vindictive.  Nothing else fit and so I said to Jerry, “I understand.  I have the health laws on my side he has to fix this.

Jerry last words as he gave me Bob’s email address was, “I wouldn’t be so sure, Ken.”  And then Jerry rode off up the rocky road that led to my rocky life in Sedona and I’ve not heard from him since.

SOS TO BOB

I sent Sam a stern but professional and amicable email.  Then I waited to see if Jerry’s resignation over the bad decision to ignore this issue had convinced Bob he was wrong.  A few hot days passed.   No word at all.  The contractors had taped shut the duct to the kitchen.  I tried running the house swamp cooler, but it I could tell from how I was sneezing and getting itchy eyes that the air from the contaminated duct was mixing in the ducts, backing up and coming out the cleaner ducts.

My hands were tied.  I could not undertake such a major HVAC repair myself, even with the AZ laws allowing me to.  It was simply too major a thing since it impacted the roof, which has had leaks.  A year after departing I saw the difficult Bob might hold responsible for roof leaks and health issues of the next tenant if the job was not done right to fix the toxic HVAC system.  I pondered the mess and thought to myself.  This communication is a nightmare.  Are we in Mercury Retrograde?  Sure enough, I checked and yes we were.  Even communicating with the Flanagans was proving a challenge.  Nothing like Bob but not the smooth and easy relationship that the norm with Pat and Steph.

I meditated for hours on end about my fate coming to such a lovely city and renting my first house since 1991.  How had it all turned to filthy air?  What were the lessons my spirit guides were trying to teach me in this Mercury Retrograde that was literally killing me?

THE ANTIDOTE TO NEGELCT

Ohom, the Orion ET who is my closest “imaginary friend” said to me one day as I was atop the summit, one which I have a clear view of from my house, as I panted for five minutes trying to catch my breath from the climb, “Ken, three of the meditations we gave you to do in Antarctica on 12.12.12 were about neglect.  Neglect is what’s killing your world.  The opposite of neglect is care.  Find a way to care for yourself and all this trouble will end happily.”

As I climbed back down the summit I could not find an answer to caring for myself without giving up this house and land I had come to love here in gorgeous Sedona.  The Hopi once used the lands of Sedona as a ceremonial sacred place.  Their wisdom mixes here with the profound Tibetan energy through the earth.  Need proof?  Many of their words for the sames things are identical even though the two races only met less than a hundred years ago .

I knew this home was only mine by rental.  But I’d done over a billion dollars in rentals for big corporations.  And done properly, with a good property manager in place, leases are estates in time.  One does not have equity of ownership but one has all the other benefits of ownership and none of the liabilities.  It’s why corporations prefer renting.  Therefore, what Bob was doing in seeming to force me to make my owner level repairs to the house was against the ethical code of renting I’d made millions back in the 80s and 90s.  It went totally against my grain despite Ohom’s advice.

Now that it was June it was getting to be very hot.  AZ temps from June through September can easily reach 100 plus daily.  Seeing no solution and hearing no answers from Bob , head of the family trust, a great vehicle BTW for Bob to hide behind for litigation, I felt helpless.  I could only send Bob a 5 day notice to repair and vacate.  I sent Bob a feeble email that I would soon be forced to send this notice and be forced to leave and pleaded for his intervention.   Icy silence from Bob filled my email box.

YOU’RE NOT HELPING MOM

Seemed like one more hot day and it was all over for staying in my home.  One day, talking about this to my mom, said bitterly, “Funny thing.  Your brother’s almsost lost his home after going to jail after fleeing the police and now here you are losing you home too.”

“Yeah, mom.  Funny.  Very funny. I’m being driven out of my house by a landlord that’s being a dick and Fred lost his house for being a dick,” I said sarcastically.

Mom giggled in the maddening mean-spirited way she can at times when she hurts me.  All the pains of her turning her back when my father beat me as kid flared briefly to life.  All the times she left home herself, leaving us with an enraged father looking for a scapegoat to her leaving him.  Mom was bitter, I said to myself, that I have stepped away from helping my brother Fred in jail and it’s all fallen on her as she stupidly consigned on his mortgage.

“Mom’s anger is seeping its way out in her enabling of Fred,” I coached myself and I instantly healed and kept calm right in the middle of mom’s taunting on the phone.  What a meditation on overcoming parental neglect!  Still, it was an amazing parallels my psychic Mom so nastily pointed out.  So I added more spirit disengaging from Fred and his addiction issues and anti-social behavior to my meditations on neglect.

NEXT MOVES

I began thinking of where I would move next?  I worried my large security deposit would be lost.  Then one day in the middle of a Pilates class the idea came to me: Install portable air conditioning and ride out my lease and burn off the security deposit!

So I went to the hardware store in Sedona and lo and behold a portable floor rolling swamp cooler was on sale for $500, strong enough to cool the whole house.  I bought it, loaded it in my jeep and went to work installing it.  Swamp coolers run on cold water from a hose and using my architect and carpentry experience, I set up the water to run through my guest room without making it look like a joke.

I’d learned about portable swamp coolers from filming in a hot warehouse at Patrick Flanagan’s Phi Sciences set and how we used one to cool the set to film Patrick for my hit 50 videos web series.  All the pieces were coming together in the middle of the haze of Mercury Retrograde when thinking is hard.

Ah!  How sweet the clean fresh cool air felt of my new FU portable swamp cooler.  I’d turned neglect into self-care as Ohom had guided me and was ready to stand  my ground against Bob’s landlord’s negligence.

Still no word back, I emailed Bob the news I was coping.  It was not pretty. The portable unit is big for the little house and noisy.  But I was functioning.   In the email to Bob I expressed my continued willingness to work this out but that rent would be withheld.  I also put all my cards on the table and said if my health damage was permanent I would be forced to seek damages.  Making clear my health was separate issue and water under the bridge at this late stage.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT BOB BEHIND THE FAMILY CURTAIN

Two weeks passed.  Then one day I finally got an email from Bob explaining he’d not seen my emails all through June.  The email amounted to little more than ass covering on his part and still incredibly seeking to paint me as imagining this HVAC thing was such a big dea despite Jerry’s resignation, photos and contractors saying it was mandatory landlord fix the HVAC.  Funniest and saddest of all,  Bob now claimed he never had anything to do with any decisions concerning the property and that he was only relaying votes of the family trust as to maintenance.  He closed this bizarre email by directing me to contact the PO Box of a woman 2 hours away in Phoenix who was handling matters and to where I should send July rent.

Rent when I am running my life on temp HVAC?  Fat chance.  It took me days to research my rights without dragging lawyers into this epic Mercury Retrograde.  But finally I had my amazing assistant Genevieve, going though her own epic landlord retrograde issues here in Sedona that are a whole other blog, proof my 5 page letter.  A letter I say in all sincerity could be studied for how a tenant can survive a landlord neglect.  Then I sent it registered letter that past Friday to the family trust’s new PO box person.

STAYING POSITIVE TO STAY IN SEDONA

I can only hope the newcomer to this HVAC debacle is more reasonable than Bob.  I went to great lengths in the email to point out property management is not for Bob if simple things make him angry.  Why?   I explained I simply want what I bought here.  A real house with real HVAC.  I am not very hopeful of not getting dragged into an eviction proceeding I will need to fight.  After all a PO Box is not how one gives good service to someone who has been a model tenant like me.

Still, Ohom and my friend and assistant Genevieve say to stay positive and so I am.  My lessons from all this are already great.  The antidote to other’s neglect is self-care.  And hold the light against the darkness.  I have faith that learning these lessons I will have a fast and full recovery whatever the landlord does in the end.

AMAZING MERCURY MESS

Lots of conflicting info about when this Mercury Retrograde ends. Some astrologers saying it ended June 30th, others saying July 2nd and others still saying July 6th. So how’s that for the bad communications Mercury Retrograde is famed for, not even the expert astrologers can agree when this mess will end?!