Seriously. There is a Code Red out on me, specifically in the world of home improvement, but also among the general population of idiots, especially those in cars. You remember, of course, last Friday's debacle in which the carpet installers arrived at 8:00 PM and left at 1:00 AM, all the while screwing up whatever other details were involved in the process. Today, I used up my comp day (aka, one of two vacation days I had this spring) to be home for the electrician.Who failed to appear.
Well. He did ultimately arrive, and is working now -- the power just went off at my desk, so Maxx is letting me type on battery power -- but once again, I was up at the buttcrack of dawn and no one showed up. I left two messages on his voicemail, and then at noon, I decided to fuck it and get out of the house before I lost my mind. I went to Office Depot and Sears (where they had the audacity to claim that Lands End does not make a tank top in black) and was home within an hour. At that point, there were two desperate messages on my voicemail: the electrician felt just terrible, he had it down for tomorrow although now he remembers telling me today, he'll be here first thing in the morning, here's his cellphone number and I should call him back as soon as I can, and he feels terrible! I got him on his cell and told him that I have to be at work tomorrow, and he hustled right over and will at least fit in the stuff he needs to do in K's room today. The basement stuff is not an emergency; he can come back one day after school or even once school is over. I am somewhat appeased.
The morons in cars are another story. I parked at the post office, hopped out and dropped stuff in the mailbox, turned around and saw that someone else was doing the same thing but hadn't bothered to park, just stopped his car behind mine so I couldn't get out. At Office Depot, I was pulling out of a space and a guy coming the other way totally blocked me and then waved me on to go. GO WHERE? Aren't some of the laws of physics just intuitive, like two objects can't exist in the same space at the same time? Who doesn't know that?
In the meantime, trapped in the house all day, I actually did locate the directions and the charger for the bluetooth headset that I have that I never use so I gave it to the Hubs last week but neither one of us knew how to use it. I will borrow it back from him for the drive down to DC in a few weeks; long drives alone are my only use for it anyway, and just wearing it over my hearing aid is a challenge. (I actually can wear it on my deaf ear, and I can just about hear it via the microphone in the hearing aid I wear on that side. I can't wear it on my hearing side because I get radio interference with the real hearing aid that I wear there.)
According to the flight plan, the Hubs should be leaving Minneapolis within the next twenty minutes or so, but his flight stops somewhere, so he won't even get into Newark until after 8:00, and then there's the getting out of the airport and driving home. So I don't expect him until well after 9:00. I do want to call his mother in a little bit, though; she's having cataract surgery tomorrow on one eye and I just want to wish her well. I'm sure she would never have any procedure done if it took more than a day, and I wouldn't be surprised if she still cooked dinner for the FIL tomorrow. In case you were wondering where the martyr DNA comes from. But this has been a long time coming; she's had the cataract a long time but it must have been slow-growing, because they wouldn't take it until now. She's a real reader and a puzzle-doer, so I know this is going to be a very nice quality of life booster for her. Really, isn't that kind of thing amazing, cataract surgery, in and out in an hour or two, change your life? My sister actually had cataracts quite young, as the result of another condition, and had both eyes done before she was 40, and again, quality of vision and life totally restored. Quite something. Says the brain tumor survivor.
The modem and router appear to be on a different circuit, so let's see if I can post ....
