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I've had "find Across a Wire" as the first item on my to-do list for at least a year. (Two CDs of live Counting Crows performances.) I occasionally start over with a list, and any items not completed on the last are transferred, and so the top items on any given list have been there for quite some time. (As a matter of interest, this time I only have one other item remaining that's been on there for that long, but I'm giving serious thought to removing it without doing it.. these things happen sometimes.) Between the two of us, we have approximately one billion CDs. I am saying this in a nice manner. What I mean is that I have ten CDs and M has a whole heck of a lot of them, most of them bought at Swedish retail prices. Aren't you all glad that he has a girl to spend money on now? Anyway, I've been through all of the standing holders, and searched in the TV stand, and in storage bins, and in bookcases and under desks and everywhere I could think of. I have the music in mp3 format, but my car stereo will only play legitimate, purchased CDs, so I have been searching for it to expand my music during my drives. Alas, no CDs ever surfaced, and I had basically given up on searching and was just waiting on it to appear. The CDs were the first thing we packed, as we never listen to any of them, and imagine my surprise and annoyance (HOW many times have I looked there??) when M pulled out my long-lost CDs out of the back of the television stand cabinet. I was so happy with him that I kissed him so thoroughly that he did nothing but blink at me for five full minutes. I believe he would have gone hunting for it sooner had he realized the depth of my desire. And, absolutely, my main desire by now was to cross the stupid thing off my list, but still, I took it out to the car, and so that's what I've been listening to lately, and yes, I am going somewhere with this.
See, here's the thing about live performances: people clap. And I don't know whether this is by design or accident, but it is not uncommon that I turn the engine off around the same time as a song goes off. Do you have any idea how touching it is to start the car and be greeted with a warm round of applause? It's great. I highly recommend it to anyone, although I must admit that the first time it happened that I turned the key and people started cheering, I jumped a little.
"Good job, K!"
"Look! She's back! YAY!"
"I haven't seen such masterful key-turning in my entire life!"
"Welcome back!"
So okay, maybe the stress is getting to me, but don't you think it would be a nicer place if everyone got periodic rounds of applause? No?
Alright then. See, that is a much more chipper topic than what I would write about otherwise. Like, how the insurance thing has been a noose around my neck, slowly draining the soul out of me. Who, me, melodrama? Nah. M and I have a System when it comes to Evil Corporations. It basically goes like this: I either meddle with initiating contact or nag M into doing it. M gets to handle the subsequent stupid details and stupid people. It can go in two directions from here--either he makes such a pest of himself that the company does his bidding just to get rid of him, or he gets angry enough that he can't even see the humor in sending them quadrupling emails every day and/or he gets bored with the whole affair. In those cases, either due to anger or hopeless boredom, I will call someone, and then things somehow get smoothed over. Today it was anger. To tell the truth, I'm not particularly good at dealing with people, so I don't suggest at all that it works well because of me. Rather, I think that the introduction of a new person is the key factor.. maybe they figure that the whole thing is about to start over from scratch just where it had begun to die down. I don't know. Anyway, I don't even have the energy to go into the whole thing with the insurance company, but I will tell you one small part because it's so dumb my eyes actually fell out of my head. Man, I hate it when they do that.
We finally get Insurance Agency (after untold trauma and angst) to fax the necessary documents to Mortgage Company. Now, I'm not one for broadcasting my finances on the internets (actually, or anywhere else) so for the sake of this story, assume that we are insuring our house for $X,000 to satisfy the mortgage folk. (If that was the correct number of decimal points, that would be great. But no. It's not.) We arrived at that number, of course, by roughly subtracting our down payment from the cost of the house. Insurance Agency sends off the documents. M sends me an irate email this afternoon to let me know that the mortgage company was in negotiations with the insurance agency because the $X,000? Yeah. They're gonna need that to be $X,500. It was at that point that I used M's favorite expression, but I won't repeat it here. Seriously, mortgage people. I will GIVE YOU $500 if you will just FIX IT. And don't even get me started on Sue. Actually, what do I care about Sue? I didn't have to talk to her. She did seem to take a serious dislike to M, though. According to an agent, though, whom I talked to, the insurance mess is straightened out. But then, what do I know? I thought it was straightened out already, but apparently not.
Anyway, other than that, nothing much special about my day, except that I have been working almost every second since I got home, minus a brief break to visit with my ice cream. (Accomplished: removal of one pint container Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream from freezer. Yay!) M says it's bedtime and who am I to argue with superior logical skills such as the boy has?
See, here's the thing about live performances: people clap. And I don't know whether this is by design or accident, but it is not uncommon that I turn the engine off around the same time as a song goes off. Do you have any idea how touching it is to start the car and be greeted with a warm round of applause? It's great. I highly recommend it to anyone, although I must admit that the first time it happened that I turned the key and people started cheering, I jumped a little.
"Good job, K!"
"Look! She's back! YAY!"
"I haven't seen such masterful key-turning in my entire life!"
"Welcome back!"
So okay, maybe the stress is getting to me, but don't you think it would be a nicer place if everyone got periodic rounds of applause? No?
Alright then. See, that is a much more chipper topic than what I would write about otherwise. Like, how the insurance thing has been a noose around my neck, slowly draining the soul out of me. Who, me, melodrama? Nah. M and I have a System when it comes to Evil Corporations. It basically goes like this: I either meddle with initiating contact or nag M into doing it. M gets to handle the subsequent stupid details and stupid people. It can go in two directions from here--either he makes such a pest of himself that the company does his bidding just to get rid of him, or he gets angry enough that he can't even see the humor in sending them quadrupling emails every day and/or he gets bored with the whole affair. In those cases, either due to anger or hopeless boredom, I will call someone, and then things somehow get smoothed over. Today it was anger. To tell the truth, I'm not particularly good at dealing with people, so I don't suggest at all that it works well because of me. Rather, I think that the introduction of a new person is the key factor.. maybe they figure that the whole thing is about to start over from scratch just where it had begun to die down. I don't know. Anyway, I don't even have the energy to go into the whole thing with the insurance company, but I will tell you one small part because it's so dumb my eyes actually fell out of my head. Man, I hate it when they do that.
We finally get Insurance Agency (after untold trauma and angst) to fax the necessary documents to Mortgage Company. Now, I'm not one for broadcasting my finances on the internets (actually, or anywhere else) so for the sake of this story, assume that we are insuring our house for $X,000 to satisfy the mortgage folk. (If that was the correct number of decimal points, that would be great. But no. It's not.) We arrived at that number, of course, by roughly subtracting our down payment from the cost of the house. Insurance Agency sends off the documents. M sends me an irate email this afternoon to let me know that the mortgage company was in negotiations with the insurance agency because the $X,000? Yeah. They're gonna need that to be $X,500. It was at that point that I used M's favorite expression, but I won't repeat it here. Seriously, mortgage people. I will GIVE YOU $500 if you will just FIX IT. And don't even get me started on Sue. Actually, what do I care about Sue? I didn't have to talk to her. She did seem to take a serious dislike to M, though. According to an agent, though, whom I talked to, the insurance mess is straightened out. But then, what do I know? I thought it was straightened out already, but apparently not.
Anyway, other than that, nothing much special about my day, except that I have been working almost every second since I got home, minus a brief break to visit with my ice cream. (Accomplished: removal of one pint container Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream from freezer. Yay!) M says it's bedtime and who am I to argue with superior logical skills such as the boy has?
