Another day of frustrations

 

My feelings exactly.

My battle with the world at the other end of my telephone continues. Yesterday, my new best friend at Central Market said that her IT guy said they do a web update at night, and after that I should be able to access the site. So this morning when Sophie dragged me out of bed at seven-fifteen, I tried the site—sure enough I could get in. Relieved I went back to bed. At about ten o’clock, when I wanted to check product availability, I got that old error message again. I emailed the tech, she said she’d get IT working on it, and I heard no more. But tonight when I tried—twice—I could log on. So I want to place an order tomorrow. We’ll see what happens.

Meantime, first email I saw this morning informed me that my security account was overdue—the people that monitor my household alarm. I thought that was pretty much impossible because that payment is automatically withdrawn from my bank account—a process I resist whenever I can because I like to have control of where my money is going. (I resist automatic payments direct to my bank account for the same reason—I want to know the money has come in; a few places, like Kindle Direct Publishing, don’t offer any other options, and I find it frustrating.) Turns out the protection company had “updated” my account and reverted to an out of date credit card. Got that one straightened out fairly simply.

This one wasn’t directly about the phone, though I ended up on the phone. About noon I turned on the faucet in the kitchen sink—and nothing happened, absolutely nothing. I tried calling neighbors, who either weren’t home or yes, they had water. So I called the water department to ask if they’d turned it off—no, they didn’t how any work in my area. So I called Christian to ask if he was coming home to let the dogs out and could see if there was water in the main house. Turns out he had already called the water department—it was just us, and they were coming out to investigate. Long story short, about an hour later, it was fixed, though I never heard what the problem was. Christian said the hoses worked the whole time, and their dishwasher was sloshing water inside, but I think that was probably stored water. To me, it was just another glitch in the day.

In church our minister frequently says the question we must ask is “What do you want me to do with my life, God? How can I help?” My question today is, “What am I supposed to be learning from all this?” One thing I’ve learned is that you cannot write the great American mystery while dealing with insurance and online grocery stores and security systems and the like. The other lesson I’ve tried to learn is patience, but that is hard for a compulsive like me. I don’t wait patiently on hold on the phone. And when something needs doing, fixing, clearing up, I see no sense in putting in off for another time, another day.  

That attitude gets me in trouble in a household of procrastinators. I just called Jacob and asked him to come talk to me. His answer was so typical, “In a sec.” My new walker/transport chair arrived today, unassembled of course, and Jordan said it probably wouldn’t get put together until the weekend. After a hard day of work, she explained, everyone is too tired. (Truly I kind of wanted it for an event tomorrow night.) The last time I watched TV in the evening was so long ago I’ve forgotten—maybe when “Mash” was on. What do I do in the evening? Read, write, what I consider constructive things. Now I have to admit, I get an afternoon nap which makes a difference. I’m probably not as tired as they are. But somewhere in all this mix, there should be compromise. I need to let go of some compulsiveness, but maybe the rest of the world needs a little dose of it.

Meanwhile, compulsively, I wrote a couple of new scenes today, and the most astonishing thing happened that I had no idea about. The plot took a whole new twist, because this new character told me I’d underestimated her importance in the story. More about that another day.

Sweet dreams. I turned the heat on last night, did you? Down almost to the thirties tonight. (Jacob just came out to the cottage, in a hoodie and short pants and barefoot, complaining about how cold it is!)