Tag: life Page 13 of 15

I feel like the guy in the Monty Python “Argument Clinic” skit this morning:

“That was never a weekend just now!”
“I’m afraid it was.”
“But I was just getting interested…”
“I’m sorry, but if you want to go on having a weekend, you’re going to have to pay!”

And, not being able to afford to not work, back to work we go.

The weekend was good though. kitanzi and I were both a bit bummed about not being able to go to Arisia, where it appears a good time was being had. But we did have the consolation of a housefilk, this month at Daric Jackson’s. Daric is a local anime fan who doesn’t get to many filks, so it’s always good to see him. Small crowd showed up, but since it included Robert and Beth Cooke, neither of us were complaining. Lots of singing, even more talking (during most of which I’d have rather heard music, but that’s a danger of a small housefilk.) Kit and I did a couple of Dave Carter/Tracy Grammer tunes for Robert, who is only just becoming familiar with them (mostly through spiritdance and Filker0. I love spreading that vector. 🙂

Sunday was housework and laundry day, though we did break it up to run off for a lunchdate. I had a craving for meat, and the chili in the crockpot wasn’t going to be ready for hours, so we went to Loco’s for buffalo wings and salad and a big steak each. Suitably stuffed, we went back home, finished up with the stuff that needed to be done, and then sat down and watched Blazing Saddles which we’d just gotten on DVD. Fun movie, though I think Kit was more amused at how much of the movie I could recite from memory than the movie itself *G*

But today is Monday, so back to work with me. Hope everyone else had a great weekend.

I have never in my life encountered so much resistance from a company i was TRYING to give money to.

Let me preface this entry by saying that I’ve by and large been very happy with Sprint PCS as a cell phone provider. They give me a metric ton of minutes for a very reasonable price, including long-distance. (The cellphone was an absolute sanity-saver when kitanzi and I were still dating long-distance.) I’ve had very few service issues in the time I’ve had the phone, almost a year now.

So today I went to pay my bill. Shouldn’t be a big deal, there’s a store not far from my office, on the way to lots of good stuff to eat, so I decided I’d swing by there on the way to having lunch with my co-worker, Aileen. Stopped by the store and they said “Sorry, we can’t take any payments now, the computers are down.”

Well, that happens. No big deal, I figured I’d just drop by when we got done with lunch. So we proceeded down to Schlotzsky’s Deli for lunch and conversation, then dropped back by to see if the computers were back up. “Yes they are, but you need to make the payment in the self-service kiosk.”

This rather annoys me, since if I’d wanted to do it all myself, I could have done it on the web and saved a trip. But I dutifully go over to the kiosk, wait in line for five minutes while watching the two “customer service” reps sit doing nothing. I finally get to the screen, enter the appropriate data, and it says “Enter your password”. Um, I don’t have a password, and without one, it only wants to accept cash, not a check. So I go over to the CSR, who tells me the password and sends me back to the computer. It still doesn’t offer to let me pay by check. I inform the CSR of this, and she looks me in the eye and with a straight face, utters the most absurd thing I’ve heard today:

“Well, i can process your payment, but there will be a five dollar charge.”

So, in order to hand my check to a human being, I have to pay an extra five bucks? This is customer service?

I shouldn’t be surprised. They also charge you three dollars to speak to a human being on their customer service line. I think my exact response was “You’ve got to be kidding me?” After being informed that no, this was not her idea of a droll prank, I muttered, “I *don’t* have time for this” and stalked out.

Aileen did her best to remind me that it was a beautiful sunny day and that it wasn’t worth being too upset about, so by the time I got back to the office, I was mostly calm. I went to the Sprint webpage, logged in, and submitted my payment in short order. Next time I’ll just do that the first time.

But am I the only person who finds it morbidly amusing that a communications company is going through so much trouble to prevent you from ever actually talking to them?

kitanzi mentioned the wonderful new bookcase we got from telynor. It’s a wonderful piece of furniture, which she said was hand-made by her uncle, but she simply had nowhere to put in her new house, and we could have it if we wanted it.

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In my last post, I mentioned one other cool thing that happened that first weekend in March.

On Friday, before I left, I realized I had forgotten something that I wanted to take with me to Tennessee. Since my apartment is now only 5 minutes from work, I figured I’d just swing by there on the way out and pick it up. While I was there I thought to pick up the mail, and found a package from zencuppa that I had been expecting. “Cool”, thinks I, and tucks it under my arm and heads up the hill.

I go in, check my e-mail one last time, find the thing I’d left and stuck it in my pocket. Then I open the package, which contains an item I’d bought at the Interfilk auction at Gafilk. The reason it was being mailed to me was that I bid it up on the promise that it would be re-done in my size. When I opened the box, I saw a card sitting on top of the neatly folded t-shirt. “Oh, that was sweet,”, I thought, and set it aside. (For those who are wondering, yes I do carry on conversations with myself like this.) I examined the t-shirt, went to put it away, and then returned to the card. It was a housewarming card, and very pretty, and I was thinking how awfully nice it was for her to include it. “She didn’t have to do that.”

And I opened it.

Inside, was a gift card from Bed, Bath, and Beyond for $250. Apparently, zencuppa had been secretly organizing this among all my friends on #filkhaven, and the card was signed from all of them. (There was also a lovely little cartoon by Debbie of the girls in Urban Tapestry, which now graces my refrigerator, held up by magnets sent to my by browngirl.)

I was stunned. I walked around the apartment for 10 minutes, leaking profusely and generally being overwhelmed. I have the best friends…….the best family…..in the world.

Thanks to zencuppa, filkerdave, surrdave, almeda, Keris, Kitanzi, ladymondegreen, browngirl, fleetfootmike, tigerbright, khaosworks, Debbie, Jodi, Allison, Teri, and hitchhiker! I’ll be sure to put it to great use (and have partially already!)

You guys are the greatest!

One of the things I promised myself once I got back out on my own was to spend more time with Shadow and Kender — I still think it’s unpardonable, as much as they mean to me, that I visited them as little as I had over the last few years. There’s a lot of reasons that was the case, but none of them seem sufficient in retrospect.

So on the 1st of March, I once again took slipped away from work early to go and drive north to the Tennessee mountains for the occasion of Elf’s fourth birthday party. The drive up was pleasant and uneventful, with a brief stopover in Chattanooga to do a little shopping. I found a cute teddybear in the Hallmark store while browsing for cards to send to Kitanzi, and also a cute blue top with a line-drawing cartoon of a cat done in glitter. Armed with birthday presents and chocolate chip cookies I finished the drive in good time.

(One brief bit of excitement — I stopped at a fast food place to use the restroom. While pulling out of their parking lot onto the small access road back to the main street, my car suddenly jerked and skidded. I immediately stopped and got out, and was greeted by what appeared to be my rear drivers-side tire come off the axle and lying flat on the ground! Only appeared to be, though — someone had left the tire in the entranceway to the parking lot, and I had essentially caught it under my rear tire as I turned. It gave me quite a scare, though!)

Got to Oak Ridge before Elf’s bedtime, but only just, and after visiting a while, we all went to bed. Kender had just finished taking exams a few days earlier and was still a knot of stress, with a thousand things to do in the morning before the house was invaded by small people with boundless energy, so sleep seemed like a good idea!

The next morning, I ran errands for Kender while she got the last details done before all the grandparents arrived. Elf was VERY excited because all four of her grandparents were going to be at her party. I told her that I was very excited too, because I hadn’t seen any of her grandparents since before she was born! (Absolutely true — the last time I’d seen them was when I was a guest at Kender’s folks house for her baby shower, about a month or so before Elf was born! Time flies….)

The afternoon was a bit of a blur — there were some number of kinetic short people who ate cake and played games and made a lot of noise. I spent most of it sitting in the den talking with the adults. Kender’s brother and his wife were also there — I hadn’t seen him either since the baby shower, but had discovered in the interim that we had a mutual friend here in Atlanta (Hi drishnak!). The highlight of the party was the Taming of the Indestructible Pinata. I expected to go and find a box for this thing labeled “Solid Pinata! from Masochist Games and Toys!) Each of the 3-4 year old children got 2 whacks each,and with went round at least three times with no visible damage to the pinata at all. Finally, Kender’s brother said “here, give me that”, and took hold of the large plastic golf club they were using as a stick. He rared back and gave it a mighty blow….and the stick broke cleanly in half. It was another 10 minutes before the impenetrable skin of the cardboard butterfly split wide, spilling its trinkety goodness to the concrete floor of the garage. The kids all seemed to enjoy it, with the exception of one little girl who was quite sensibly scared of the thing, and I think they all get extra XP since the Gargantuan Butterfly Pinata obviously has a challenge rating far in excess of their average party level. Luckily, it never got a chance to use it’s breath weapon.

After the pinata came the opening of the presents and the showing off of same, which is always fun to watch — I still remember bright cold Christmas afternoons at my grandfather’s house, when the presents would be passed around and wrapping paper and tinsel littered the rugs — its a warm, happy, family feeling, and I was glad to be there and soak that in.

Finally, the party dispersed and the family plus myself went to a local pizza buffet for dinner. It was very pleasant company until someone decided they really wanted to watch the basketball game at very high volume, and we dispersed after that. Shadow’s parents spent the night, so I got to spend a lot more time getting to know them. It was very nice. During the course of the evening, I managed to have taken what may be the most embarrassing photo of me currently available on the Internet – so don’t say I never gave y’all nothing…..*grin*

Sunday it was time to drive home. I’ve really come to look forward to my visits to Tennessee — it’s sort of a spiritual recharging place. The house has a sunroom on the back which backs up on a zillion acres of forest belonging to the University of Tennessee, and I can walk out there and just stare out at the unspoiled nature and feel very much at peace. For a person who has always felt a bit adrift, this adopted family is a great goodness in my life. Shadow, Kender — I love you guys. A whole lot.

The drive home was pleasant and filled with good talk. Being the weekend, I had a lot of cellphone minutes I could burn, so I called GEM and kyttn and caught up with them for a while — we talk regularly on #filkhaven, but its the first extended conversation I’d had with them voice in well over a year, which is just too long. At some point my travel agenda must include Virginia….

After ringing off with them, I called browngirl and talked with her the rest of the way home. (I should note here, since i was asked by a concerned friend (*hug nrivkis*) that I was doing all this drivetime conversation using an appropriate hands-free headset. I don’t condone the irresponsable use of cellphones in traffic) The rest of Sunday was spent doing all the household chores I normally reserve for the weekend that of course didn’t get done while I was away. (There’s one more cool thing that happened at the beginning of the weekend, but that’s for another post…)