call today, operators are standing by.....

Hi,
Verizon. You know who I am talking about. They make me want to spit.
Every month I get the bill from Verizon and I wait for it... the increase. It happenes every year, rain or shine. So I make the phone call.

" Hello, this is Verizon, how may we help you?"

Now you know I have sat in voice-mail-hell for at least 15 minutes before I get to hear this human voice but that's not my problem. My Verizon rate has increased, yet again, for no reason other than they hope I won't notice and just keep sending them money... fat chance.

This year I get "Sylvia". She's sweet and even has a sense of humor about where she is working. "Do I have permission to access your account?" She cracks up laughing as she asks me this stupid question. Of course you have permission, without my account info in front of you I can't beging to get my problem of "over charging" rectified.  We both agree that the idiots who write out this dialogue for her to follow are morrons who have never worked the phones a minute in their small and unimportant lives.

After explaining that I am a continued valued, never-missed-a-payment customer of good standing with Verizon, Sylvia wants to know what my problem is. You've raised my rates for no reason, with no notice and for no change in service and I'm refusing the new rate, fully prepared to go to the competition who are charging $20/month less for the exact same crap on TV, internet access and phone deal.... tag, you're it! Sylvia, without missing a beat, says "Let me see if there is a promotion running that I can offer you...." are you kidding? Of course there is a promotion you can offer me, "match your competitors price or I'm history with Verizon" babe! I think that's a catchy name for a promo, don't you?

Sylvia, my new best friend, finds exactly what we are looking for, after a little hemming & hawing for effect, our new Verizon bill is back down to $9 less than I paid every month for the last 6 months. Still not a bargain, but not $20 higher. It's all in how you play the game. I get to be a valued (yet cheap) customer, Verizon gets to live another day. I really want to drop a bomb on these morons at leat once a year but at least it's only once a year I have to bitch at them to get our bundle package at a reasonable price.

Should I start calling the petrolium companies next? Gas at $4.08/gal could use a little whack up side the head too.

xox
m

Roofers...... uch!

Hi,
our roof is leaking. Nothing serious, it started in the middle of the winter in the garage, but once one spot is weak enough to leak that means there is more to follow.... so I have started talking to roofers.

I hate roofers.

People in the roofing industry are notoriously liars, cheats, thieves and low lives... and those are the good ones. Every time I have to deal with a roofer I feel like I need to take another shower. Roofers make used car salesmen and insurance representatives look like potential Nobel Prize winners for truth and honesty. Do you see where I'm going with this yet?

Starting my quest for a roofer I e-mailed around to my friends in the neighbourhood to get some names of people that have done business with. I tried them first. That brought in the first round of quotes. Then I hit the Yellow Pages and started calling names in the book. All in all, I now have seven quotes (with one still to come) for redoing the entire roof. Same job, same materials, same house. The quotes range from $18,000 to $48,000. Do you see why I hate roofers! How could the same space and job have a range in quotes like this? It's just stupid.

To be fair, there are the six sky lights to replace also and I already know what that costs from the manufacturer, but even taking that into account the rest of the materials and labor are all over the map. To add insult to injury, every roofer has told me the same B.S. about how "they just did their own roof". What are the odds that eight guys all had to "just do their roof"? How stupid do I look?
Don't answer that.

Now it's crunch time. Do I pick Home Depot who's price came in the middle of the pack but the representative still hasn't got me a price for the skylights? How about the nice guy from Poland who is running his father-in-laws 20 year old operation and loves borscht? Russell Roofing sent the nicest manager out to quote the job. He used to manage a country & western singer named Brian McCombs. Now there's a true solid reference for good, down home honesty. There is the guy who's got the wrong type of skylights in his quote, two "one man and his brother, cousin & uncle" teams and the jerk yesterday who disagreed with everything I said about the property information. Doesn't he know that I live here? Uch, I needed an aspirin after his visit.

It becomes a 'pay your money, take your chances', toss of the coin, roll of the dice and spin of the wheel decision. Do you take the bottom dollar quote and hope the guy is still in business next year to fix what ever he didn't do right the first time? Middle of the pack quote? Pay a little more and hope it's worth it? Go high end and at least have bragging rights to having the most expensive shingle roof in the neighbourhood (like anyone would even care)? The roof is definitely getting replaced, it's all a matter of how much we opt to invest in it and who I can stand to have around the house for a week while the job gets done. I plan to take a lot of showers.

xox

m

My Hero

Hi,
today was one of those days. Everything is going along tickety-boo and then, BAM! You get hit between the eyes when you're not paying attention.

No I didn't crash the car or drop an egg on the floor. I watched a young man come into his own.

I have been teaching Alex to swim since last August. He was the most frightened seven year old I have ever met when we first started getting in the pool together. His water phobia was all consuming and as painful for him to live with as it was for me to witness. I had no idea how to get this poor guy into the water, let alone how to get him to swim.

We suffered through a lot of tears and painful clutching of my arm until he finally started to trust me. I wasn't going to let him get hurt, or drown, or even get his face wet until he was really ready. Even though he knew this to be the truth, it was a couple of months until it sunk in (no pun intended). Once we got past the panic attacks and Alex started to believe that he really could master the art of floating there was no holding him back.

Alex spent the last 8 months working harder than anyone I've ever met not only learning to swim but conquering his terror of the water.

Today he swam 8 lengths of the pool in a very respectable front, and then back, crawl. Jumped off the side of the pool into the water with a passion & glee that was unheard of as recently as last month. Beat his continuous flutter kicking record of 1.5 minutes with a whopping 7.5 minutes of kicking at the edge of the pool. Last, but not least he handed me a hand written note that I proudly post here on my blog.

Alex has graduated on to group swim lessons in the next session at the NAC but he will always be my most favorite, and special, student of the pool. When he runs for President of the USA in 2042 be sure to vote for him. No one works harder or smarter than him.

xox
m

April Showers

Hi,

April showers bring May flowers. That is so true in Yardley. It's been cold and raining for the first week of this month. I'm sick of it, but the flowers are happy as hell. The daffodils are all in bloom along with the periwinkle, grape hyacinth, hellebore and the trees are just as excited about sprouting their buds..... it's all going to be glorious in a few weeks. I can't wait.

At the end of the month I'm getting a new swimming class..."Adult Learn To Swim". The new aquatic director at the NAC, Brandi, is a totally breath of fresh air around the place. She is a real 'doer' and I love working with her. After 2 years of suggesting an adult class for non-swimmers, she has added this to the swim schedual. Her first class last term was filled in one day of registration and she had to turn people away. I've offered to teach a second class on Friday mornings. We'll see how this goes. I've taught a lot of adults privately, but never in a group. This will be a lot of bubbles in one place. Fun, fun, fun!

On a totally different topic, I have been knitting up a storm. My latest project is a baby blanket. I saw a beautiful blanket from Sferra on the Internet, $93. You have to be kidding right? I can knit that for under $10 worth of yarn and a few (well more than a few) hours of work. The blanket has the alphabet letters knit into it in a very interesting layout. Very funky typography. Marshall showed me how to lay it all out on an Excel grid and now I'm making my own version of a $93 blanket. I love a challenge and designing my own pattern is a lot of fun. As my friends are all becoming grandparents I now am back to knitting baby stuff and this is a perfect gift. I can watch the Food Network and work away for hours.... then I take my new cooking info and go to work in the kitchen. Iron Chef has nothing on me! Maybe I can host my own show? I think "Knisches* & Knitting" could be a big hit.

Now we take you back to our regularly schedualled program......

xox

m

*Knisches are Jewish wontons... and if you don't know what a wonton is you really need to be getting out and eating in better restaurants.