Seasons of Denial

Yesterday it was almost 60 degrees here in Boston. It was a beautiful, sunny day. I had my coat on, but it wasn't buttoned...I was wearing a sweater and a thermal undershirt but I didn't have to put on a scarf. These are the things that pass for warmth up here in February. So, I thought we'd finally turned a corner. Then last night the weatherman said the word "accumulation". I promptly stuck my fingers in my ears and started singing the theme from "The Love Boat." Because it felt like Spring yesterday, and therefore it is Spring.

Today I'm getting ready to go to a meeting at work. I put on my corduroys, socks to my knees, a turtleneck and a sweater. And before I walk to the door I think, "I'll wear my light jacket today...because it is Spring. And I'll wear my dress boots...because the ice melted yesterday." And I left the house. I climbed in the car... and snowflakes began to fall.

SNOWFLAKES!!! WHAT THE HELL!!!

Defiant, I started the vehicle and drove to work. I parked in the deck, and decided to walk to the Dunkin' Donuts across the street for coffee. I shielded my eyes so that the falling ice crystals wouldn't impale my corneas and still I denied. I walked into the office, did my work, packed up my things and got ready to brave the weather again. I thought, it's snowing but it's not that cold...it can still be Spring. I walked toward my car with my backpack, keys in hand, refusing to give in to my rage at the groundhog.

And then I slip. And I fall. Because that is what happens when you're wearing boots that have no tread and 3 inch heels in the snow. I effing hate winter.

Open Letter

Dear National Grid,

I am a paying customer of yours, partaking in both your electrical and natural gas services. If I had any choice at all in the matter, I would get a waterwheel and tell you to go screw yourselves. My electric bill DirectPay option is set up to withdraw from an account that I no longer replenish. So, the well has finally runneth dry and I need to change my payment options. Because National Grid swallowed up the company that used to provide my electric services, I went to your website to reset my payment options. Apparently the natural gas and electric divisions of the company are separate, and to inconvenience me in the maximum amount possible, you use separate account numbers to represent the different services even though they are for the same customer. Thanks so much for that.

So, I have my account information for my natural gas billing, because I receive monthly email statements. My electric bill is also supposed to be paperless, but I never receive them. So, I just have my account direct-pay and hope that you don't overcharge me. Such is my faith in the goodness of man, and my laziness about resetting any options. Unfortunately recently my outdated account became overdrawn as my electric bills have finally used up all the money. So, I need to reset the directpay to draw from a different account. Enter me putting my fist through a wall.

I come home today with the intention of accomplishing Operation Directpay Reset. I go to the national grid website. Of course I don't remember any of my login information- or what I thought the information was, it wasn't. So, I go to the "Forgot password" form. Apparently my username is incorrect. So I go to the "Forgot username" form. It asks me to enter my email address affiliated with the account. I do and it says that "Email addresses should be in the form address@isp.com". Umm...duh? I know what an effing email address looks like...and furthermore, I know what MY email address looks like. So, obviously, your company has no idea that I exist...probably a remnant of your hostile takeover of my former provider.

I have no choice but to call the company. I know it's not going to be pleasant, I know it's going to take forever, but it has to be done. Because overdraft charges suck. So, I call. First I have to listen to a 5 minute announcement about a power outage that doesn't apply to my area. Fine. Then we get to the automated operator. He reads a menu, I choose an option. He reads another menu, I choose another option. I have to listen to 4 different scripts before the phone starts ringing. At this point, I'm informed that all operators are (shockingly) busy assisting other customers, but they have this great system where they'll call ME back when they're ready. Great. Sign me up. I enter my information and wait 20 minutes for a call back. Which is fine because honestly this game is like crack.

When the phone finally rings, it's another automated operator. "We're calling for...(recording of me saying my name). Please press 1 when this person is on the line." I immediately press 1, and I kid you not am placed on hold. The old familiar sound of "All operators are busy assisting other customers, but your call is important to us. Please stay on the line." Didn't I have you call me so I didn't have to listen to this?!? The phone finally rings through to an operator and all of a sudden the line is dead. Dead. I was disconnected. At this point I have spent an hour trying to switch the credit card billing information on my electric bill.

So, I go back to the website. I try alternate emails and passwords (even though I know which email address should work.) After 3 tries, the system locks me out. I close the window, I'm still locked out. So I have no option but to call back. I call and again hear the message about the power outage. No amount of button mashing will get me around it. I again get the automated menu. I swear and yell in the hopes that you have one of those systems that recognizes when the caller is pissed. Apparently you do because the automated guy apologizes to me and immediately puts me on the phone with a person in billing.

Billing makes sense, right? I'm trying to update my automated BILLING option. I want to give you money. Payments and billing should be the right people, if your company made any sense. But it doesn't. On the other end of the line was the loudest woman in the world, totally pissed that I didn't have my account number ready.

Billing Lady: "You don't know your account number?"
Me: "I know my gas account number, I don't know my electric because I do online statements and I can't access my account."
Billing Lady: "Those are totally separate accounts."
Me: "Okay, so what do we do?"
Billing Lady: "What's your social?"

So she finds my account and then asks me what I need. I tell her I need to update my DirectPay.

Billing Lady: "Oh! That's customer service. Customer service does that. We don't do that. Your account number is 123455432324 (spouted off quickly without even asking whether I had paper and pen handy, which I didn't), call the 800 number then option 2 then option 4."

Does she offer to transfer me? Does she help me in any way? Of course not...God forbid the payment department have anything to do with helping you make a payment.

I called back, listened to the outage message, hit 2 and then 4, ended up having to listen to the menu anyway because hitting numbers didn't get me to the right place. I eventually screamed "CUSTOMER SERVICE" and a couple f-bombs and was placed on hold for a representative. I didn't opt to have them call me back because that obviously is a ploy. When given my estimated 20 minute wait time on the phone, I took into consideration the fact that my next payment wasn't to be deducted until February and decided to give the blood vessel in my forehead a break. After 10 minutes on hold, I hung up and screamed into a pillow.

I guess I'll call back tomorrow. Or stop using electricity. Because seriously, I hate your company.

Thanks for nothing,
Sam

Why I Miss My Family

Because all good holiday pictures should include monocles.Because every year the Christmas tree gets bigger. Seriously- next year they'll have to cut a hole in the roof.Because you send my sisters outside to put up the Nativity scene in the yard, and this happens:Because they make holiday cookies representing "Peace on the Mothership."Because who else's tree features the Christmas germ?Because they're crazy in all the best ways.

Merry Christmas everyone :)

Christmas Time Is Here

Actually Christmastime has been here for about a week or so, but I haven't gotten anything done. This month is pretty much totally hellacious in terms of work obligations...which is the reason that I won't be seeing any of my family members this holiday season. I'm also using it as my excuse for getting none of my holiday shopping done. So far I have purchased....nothing. Not. A. Thing.

Which is too bad because I have a LOT of people to shop for. Luckily I took a trip to NYC a couple months ago and was too lazy to mail the souvenirs I got for my sisters while I was there. So, I plan to re-gift the gifts that I never gave. Sisters' gifts- check. Unfortunately I also have to think of something stellar to give to my boyfriend fiance...since he's already infinitely topped me. He already bought me an immersion blender. Oh...and this bad boy:
Also, I was included in Tom's family gift swap this year. We all drew names...a lot easier to buy a gift for one person than 8. Of course, I couldn't have picked an easy one...can't just buy his younger brother a couple cans of spray paint and tell him to go wild. Nope. Instead I drew Tom's mother. Which is fine...she's a really sweet person and I think I can get her something she'll like. Certainly I can do better than Thanksgiving when I gave her a case of hives. Yup. My cooking gave Tom's mother hives. She was at work scratching herself out of her skin all night. Thanks a lot foodnetwork.com.

And while we're on the topic of Christmas, a local Boston paper recently critiqued the movie "White Christmas" a 1 out of 3 Ho's (as in Ho, Ho, Ho's). They said that it was just another reason for Bing Crosby to sing "White Christmas." Well let me tell you something Boston Metro. "White Christmas" is the greatest holiday movie of all time. There's singing, dancing, romance, a selfless act, snow, and of course BING CROSBY SINGING CHRISTMAS CAROLS! What could be wrong with that? Also, you can't tell me you don't enjoy this song:

Bing Crosby's joke is hilarious.

Anyway...I'm hoping to revive my blog. So, you'll be hearing more from me. Including photos of my parents' 18 ft. Christmas tree (I am so not joking.) Laters!

Hoping

These two boys waited as a long line of adults greeted Senator Obama before a rally on Martin Luther King Day in Columbia, S.C. They never took their eyes off of him. Their grandmother told me, "Our young men have waited a long time to have someone to look up to, to make them believe Dr. King's words can be true for them." Jan. 21, 2008.

*Image by Callie Shell- see full set here. She has some amazing intimate shots of the Obamas on the campaign trail.

Flashback

I'm 8 years old, sitting in my bedroom reading a book. My mother walks in holding a wooden spoon. The spoon has yarn hair, googly eyes, and mismatched clothing glued to its handle.

Mom: "What do you think about joining the Girl Scouts?!"
Me: pointing to spoon "Is that what Girl Scouts do?"
Mom: "Well, yeah....this is one of the projects. You also get to learn things and earn merit badges."
Me: "No."
Mom: "Are you sure?! It could be fun..."
Me: "I'm not dressing up utensils. Go ask Jessica."

When I think of Girl Scouts, I think of anthropomorphizing spoons. No thanks. Of course, 5 minutes after Mom took Jessica to the scout interest meeting, Dad walked into my room.

Dad: "Not Girl Scout material, huh?"
Me: "God no."
Dad: "Good. Go sweep the kitchen."
Me: "Damn."

I regretted my decision until Jessica came home with that day's project: a pecan with googly-eyes glued to it.

Boy Scout Motto: "Always Be Prepared."
Girl Scout Motto: "Always Be Prepared...to make inanimate objects look like people on drugs."

Unsupervised

My landlady is having the house painted. She's been having the house painted for a month now, and they just finished yesterday. Thank God. For the past month, I've been awakening to the sound of sanding, ladders clattering on the house, and guys speaking some language I've never heard in my life. It's exhausting, and it's annoying. Primarily because I have a penchant for not walking around my house-where I live alone-in a whole lot of clothing. However, there's a window upstairs that's kind of oddly placed, so there's no blinds and no reason to have blinds. Except now there are painters standing at that upstairs window every morning. Everytime I walk from my bedroom to the bathroom now I have to wear pants. Pants! It's a travesty.

Over the course of this month, my landlady calls me all the time and asks me to do things.
8 AM- "Can you open both your doors?"
8 AM- "Are you going anywhere today?"
8 AM- "Can you move your car out onto the street?"

Why she always has to ask me crap while I'm still asleep is beyond me, but such is my life. So, yesterday I left for work early in the morning. The painters were outside my door painting the threshold. I stepped over them, hopped in the car and headed to the office. Later that night, my meetings were over and I was at a bar with some coworkers. My landlady calls.

"Hey Sam, when are you coming home?"
"I don't know, an hour or two? Why?"
"Well, it's just that the painters had to paint the thresholds, so both of your doors are open."
"You opened my doors?"
"Yeah, cause they had to paint."
"So do you need me to come home and guard my stuff? What do you need?"
"Oh no, I would never ask you to do that. I'm here and I'm checking on everything, so no worries."
"Okay bye."

So, I stay at the bar another hour, get home about 3 hours after she called. I arrive home, the house is dark, her car is not in the driveway, and both of my doors are wide open. In my living room sit Tom's computer and various gaming systems. However, nothing's missing, so Tom and I turn on the lights and the Red Sox game and go on about our business. About an hour later we hear the landlady pull up. She's probably left my stuff unguarded for a good 3 hours...I'm sure she was calling to see if I was coming home so she could leave. But, I hate her, I've already renewed my lease, nothing's missing, I'm just gonna leave it alone.

I've been home for about an hour when I walk upstairs to use the restroom. I walk in, and the toilet seat is up. I freak out. You see, in 14 months of living near Tom and even for the year he would come visit me in Alabama, Tom has never once left the toilet seat up. Not once. It's kind of amazing actually. Plus, he hadn't been up to the bathroom since we'd been home and I know I hadn't left it up that morning. Someone had been in my house. Not just in my house, pretty much in every single room of my house because to use the restrooom you have to go all the way upstairs.

So, I run downstairs and call my landlady.
"Hey, did you let your guys use my bathroom?"
"What? No. I'll call them and find out if they used it."
"Fine. I know they used it though- someone did."
"Okay, I'll call them."

So, she calls them and of course one of the painters admits to having used it.
"What? I had to use the toilet!"

She calls me and insists that she was there supervising them all day...oh, except when she went to get her kid. "He must've intentionally waited for me to leave to go in." Yeah, well maybe you should've gotten someone else to pick up the kid, or someone else to watch the house, or NOT open my frikkin' doors without my permission. Cripes.

So, the painter incident, combined with the fact that I wasn't allowed to close my doors til midnite even though it was 50 degrees out (had to let the paint dry) kind of made last night craptastic. If I get robbed this weekend, I think we all know who did it.

The only good thing? On my way out of the bar last night, I found a $50 bill in the street.