This Was Not The Day I Ordered

Can I send it back?
After this morning's post, I settled into a morning of puttering. Yes, I was getting things done that needed to be done, but at a snail's pace.

The plumber showed up when he was supposed to. Hooray! I got RT vol. 1 2 and 3 into my iTunes and onto my iPod. Hooray! I got a bunch of the Costco stuff from Sunday Foodsavered and into the freezer. (LOVE the new machine, BTW) Hooray!

Then the crapolla started. DirecTV dude called my mother's house instead of mine to say he was going to be 30 minutes late for his 8am-Noon window. The phone number thing is not totally his fault ... we didn't have our home phone number when we set up the install. HOWEVER: 1. How can you be late for a four-hour window? That is completely unacceptable as far as I'm concerned. 2. You call and say you're going to be 30 minutes late and show up 65 minutes late? Fuhgeddaboutit!

I had already called the dude's office to re-set up the appointment for Monday, in the afternoon. He tried to blame it on the phone number mix-up (despite the fact that he reached my mother, not a machine, then called MY number ... while I was on the phone with DirecTV ... and said "I'll be there around 12:30, if that's a problem, call the office" without leaving the office phone number), and then to blame it on the fact that whoever took the order wrote our street down as "Icenhauer" instead of Eisenhower.

Tangent ... It is completely appalling to me the number of people who have never heard of Eisenhower. He was a five-star General, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in WWII, which means he supervised Operation Overlord/the D-Day invasion, etc. Then he became the freakin 34th President of the US, a two-term President, and authorized the national Highway system that is in use today. You know, the Eisenhower Highway System? With signs all over the freakin' country? That I just drove over 2800 miles of? Created NASA? I Like Ike? Yeah. That dude. What the hell else should he have done so that people who live in America in 2007 know how to spell his name?

Soapbox has been put away. Sorry. That was 36 years of rant for people to whom I say "Eisenhower, like the President" who reply "I-S-E-N ..." GAAAHHH!!

Hubster called DirecTV tonight, and it was a good thing. Dude who showed up late almost certainly had the wrong tuner box with him. And our account was set up with Hubster's first AND last names misspelled. C'mon, people! It's not like he has an unusual or ethnic name! It's practically John Smith! (randomly picked vanilla name)

So we'll get a $100 credit to our account. And the dude had damn well better be there on Monday between 1-5.

Onward!

So I called mom, gave her the update and told her I'd be ready to leave for the Lake in about 30 minutes. I had to finish (at a speed I should have been using all morning) the puttering I had started, then find and corral all the crap I wanted to bring up to the Lake. I had it mostly corralled when she showed up.

Then I stepped on a bee. In my bare feet. Did I mention that I'm allergic to bee stings? Not carry-an-epi-pen allergic, but allergic nonetheless. I'll spare you the shot of my second toe, which is mildly swollen and surprisingly only mildly grumpy about its encounter with said bee and stinger. Which I couldn't get out without tweezers. And swearing.

So we made a side trip to the ER at the hospital for which I worked the fundraiser golf tournament yesterday. I have a prescription that I'm not supposed to fill unless things get ugly or things have not run their course and started to improve by Monday. The last time I was stung was during my freshman year in college (fall of 1989), so I have no idea what my reaction is gonna be this time around. Hence the ER visit to be safe.

Meanwhile I'm at the Lake. But the highlights of what I forgot to bring include: Movies. Knitting beyond the now-finished sleeve and those darn Jaywalkers. Warm(er) clothes. Probably about 10 other things that I will think of later, meant to bring, can live without but would probably like to have over the next five days. Baby brother and sis-in-law are coming up on Friday night and can pack mule a little bit, but I'll just wing it until then. I have four Harry Potter books, a shocking quantity of my favorite smut, enough swimsuits for a week at the beach and workout stuff if my foot is feeling OK. I'll live

I did finish the second sleeve on my alpaca sweater. I'll spare you a photo, since it pretty much looks exactly like the front and back did here.

We got to the Lake in plenty of time for sunset, but there was cloud cover on the horizon. I probably could have gotten a decent photo of some of the reds peeking through the clouds, but I talked to our neighbor instead. Nobody had bothered to tell Tony that Chris and I have officially moved back to Pittsburgh, so he was a little surprised (but happy!) to see me.

Now that the amateur fireworks for the night seem to have concluded, I think I'm going to head to bed. The kiddie bike parade starts at 10, and then the local fire engine will be making endless loops around the Point with sirens on and kids on board. I'm actually looking forward to it (and to what the adults across the street will do for the parade), since I haven't been able to be here for the 4th in years. I'll try hard for decent photos tomorrow.