I grasp hard at August, kicking and screaming as she wraps up. There's something about those last few days before September kicks in that make me feel a little whiney and cranky. I don't WANT it to be September! Maybe it's that deeply ingrained childhood memory of the end of summer vacation. Yuck, I didn't WANT to go back to school. But of course once I did it was great...mostly.
So it's a staycation holiday weekend for me...no worries there. Just getting totally random things done and also, just relaxing. I decided to get into the 21st century even more for real and switched my landline over to my Comcast internet and cable package. I found out I could bundle my phone service in with my cable and internet and pay less than I was paying for my current Comcast services (huh? wow) AND save the $55 a month I was paying for my old school landline. AND keep my same landline number. AND get a DVR for my TV. What's not to love about this? I weighed the pros and cons...when the power's out or when Comcast is down I'll be screwed but then again, how often does that happen? I have a super old school curly cord phone in my bedroom with the ringer turned off - I have it for emergencies and have two other cordless phones here in the townhouse. When we had a two-week power outage back in late 2006 that old school landline saved me. Cell phone towers were knocked out and we were pretty much brought to our knees, crippled with minimal if any communication. I've been reluctant to cut the cord on my landline because of that, but then remember that that was a freak once-in-a-lifetime storm.
So yesterday two Comcast dudes show up and within an hour, voila. I have a new, higher speed modem for my internet (which now hosts my landline phones too) AND a DVR for my TV. Don't laugh...I still haven't converted to a flat screen TV yet. I will. My old curly cord phone is now as useful as last week's newspaper so away she goes.
They explained how the initial upload and refresh of the TV channels can take awhile which seemed reasonable to me. They showed me how to set up my voicemail for my new landline service - all good. I was very impressed with how helpful they both were. And they even showed up a little earlier than my appointment timeframe. Nice!
Guess it was too good to be true. I waited a little while before playing around with the TV. When I did, my remote was pretty much useless. Did the batteries die? Nope. I could adjust the TV volume and mute the sound with it, but could not change channels nor get to the channel lineup guide. Stuck! God, help me...my TV's stuck on the E! channel and just my luck it's a Keeping up with the Kardashians marathon. I can only stomach that scripted reality TV crap (krap?) for a few minutes at a time.
So Comcast rebooted my TV and cable box remotely. All's well...or was. Within an hour it froze up again...and Comcast had to reboot it remotely for the second time. After that everything was fine for the rest of the evening. As I was heading to bed I realized I'd forgotten to try the DVR out but I figured I would do that today.
I woke up this morning and decided to play around with the TV more before heading out to meet my good friend J for brunch. UGH. This time the TV turned on just fine...and then 5 minutes later the cable box rebooted...on its own. It's possessed or something. HELP!
Comcast is sending out a crew to swap out my cable box this afternoon. I was pleasantly shocked that they could do a same-day service, especially here on a Sunday, but I'll take it. It's the least they can do to make this right.
And yet, it's just TV. Sure I want it working right as it should, but I'm not going to get overly upset about it. Now if it was Stanley Cup Finals or something that would be a different story. Just trying to keep perspective...
...meaning it was a tough week these past few days. My Dad's cousin J passed away suddenly from a heart attack. The next day my co-worker L's Dad passed away after a long battle with Parkinson's and dementia. And the day after that my friend T was hit on her morning commute into work...her car got rear-ended on the freeway by someone who wasn't paying attention and she's still feeling the after effects, though thankfully not severely injured.
I was talking about this with J this morning over lots of coffee and a nice bacon and cheese omelette. Yum, I may not even need dinner I'm so full. She agrees, yes, it's all about perspective. Sometimes it's hard to find that discipline within. I guess it's ongoing Life Work.
We walked around the shops near where we had brunch...wonderful little boutiquey specialty stores full of everything from art to home accessories (my weakness) and crafts like rubber stamping and beading. No patience here for either of those but it's fun to look.
And we ended up in a fantastic shop we both love to visit. It has tons of candles and aromatherapy things (oils, humidifiers)...and lots of stones and crystals. I LOVE the chunk of Celestite I purchased there nearly a couple of years ago - it's right next to me here by the good ol' laptop.
Once again, something pretty much leaped off the shelf into my arms. Labradorite. The picture in my post here is of a polished sphere...my chunk is, well, wonderfully imperfect...half of it is polished and the other is rough. Deliciously asymmetrical and hunky. I love the greens and greys. I asked the woman in the store to tell me a little about it. "It's a magic stone," she explained. She pulled out a huge, well-worn book and turned to the page. "Helps one remain calm within chaos." Ahhhh, sounds good to me. Here's more .
So my new Labradorite holds a tea light or votive too. Love it. And the woman who works there is so nice...she is very gentle, knowlegeable and grandmotherly and reminds me a little of a therapist I used to see about 10 years ago.
I'm not yet sure where to put this new beauty, but I think I'll keep it near the TV and DVR for now.
After all, it couldn't hurt.
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