Happy Easter Everyone!
Apr 082012
Apr 052012
Months ago when I decided that I’d had enough with paying 3 different phone bills, there was an agreement between Rick & I that going strictly to a cell phone for our communications needs would be just hunky dory.
That lasted all of a week. Rick realized that we he still had to have some kind of phone in the house because my cell phone has less than stellar service. (I beg to differ: my cell phone has crappy service but it still sends & receives calls. The quality may not be the best if there is a sun spot/lightening storm/windy day/invasion from Mars, but I’m OK with that.)
The first option that he was convinced would cost us him just pennies was Magic Jack. This wonderful invention was very inexpensive and you only had to pay a one-time initial bill of $80 or some other stupid amount and then monthly it was virtually free. Only there was one small problem: we couldn’t call anyone locally. Sure, we could call everyone else on the planet, but not in our own dialing area. This made the necessity of him calling me at home or me calling him at work somewhat problematic. After him farting around on it for the 30 day “risk free trial”, he finally asked for a refund and sent the piece of crap “jack” back to them.
His latest find is from some geeks out in California that are trying to launch their own VOIP business. Anything that can run through the computer has “RICK” written all over it (also anything geekish). So far (which is a month now, I guess) the phone has worked well. I can call Rick and he can call me. We can also call other people, which is another good use of the phone I guess.
However, I’m kind of concerned about the phone they sent us. It seems to be haunted. The first time it showed that it was possessed was at 2:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning when it woke me up ringing. “Who the f*ck is calling this house at that time of the morning“, is all I could think to myself as I stumbled bleary eyed to the kitchen to give the person on the other end a piece of my mind. (side note: no one was supposed to have the phone number, so add an extra level of freaky to the situation.) I picked up the receiver and no one was there. There also was no dial tone. I was too tired to give it any thought, so I went back to bed, unhappy that I didn’t get to ream out somebody for calling in the middle of the night.
Time number 2 happened just a few days ago when the phone rang and I went to answer it. Again, no one was on the other end of the line, and no dial tone. I hung up and it rang again. Picked it up – no one there, yada, yada, yada. So I just let the stupid thing ring… for 2 more minutes! Then it stopped. Mildly annoying? Yes, you could say that.
The latest escapade happened when I was on my cell phone with my daughter tonight. I had her on speaker phone so I could putz with cat food and I heard a dial tone, and I assumed that we had lost connection. So I hung up. Only problem was, I heard the dial tone again… and I wasn’t on the phone any more. I quickly realized that it was the VOIP phone playing mind games with me. Color me embarrassed! That stupid thing made me hang up on my own daughter!
Anyone know someone that can do an exorcism on a telephone?
Apr 042012
Every year we seem to lose more and more of our grassy lawn to moss. It’s almost like we have some sort of rainforest-type atmosphere sitting over our little homestead.
The sandy soil seems to take over any area that was previously covered with grass, and then the shade from the trees form a carpet of moss so that there is a beautiful illusion of a well manicured lawn. From a distance.
While I was perusing Facebook earlier today, I came upon a photo that a friend shared from a page called Old Moss Woman’s Secret Garden.
I think this is a pretty spiffy idea! We have plenty of moss and Creeping Charlie to cover most of it, and I guess could fill in empty spaces with pine cones and fallen pine branches. Maybe I could transplant some of my Vinca next to it for some flowery accent.
Whaddya think?
Apr 032012
It’s voting day here in Wisconsin. The day on which we, as citizens of our great nation and state, get to go to the polling stations and waste our time voice our opinions on who we want to rob us blind represent us on the ballot in November.
And is the norm for Rick & I, we go together. This is something that we have done for over 20 years. Hand-in-hand, we walk through those doors to place miniscule “x’s” in tiny little boxes that may or may not count depending on how well the polling personnel are at seeing. And by the looks of it at our polling station today, the metamucil crowd that they lined up for volunteers did’t leave me with great hope.
But I did learn 2 things today when we voted:
1. They did not ask for ID because that is still going through the courts. Personally, I think the ID requirement is bullshit. What, for heaven’s sake, is this trying to prevent? Illegal immigrants will put Juan Valdez on the ballot? Terrorists will plot to invade the US with fake ID’s, resurrect Saddam Hussein and elect him as the next President? Anybody who has enough time and idiocy can create a fake ID if they want to. They used to do it all the time when I was young just to get in the bars. It’s got to be even easier now with computer technology!
2. There is a dress code for voting. I shit you not. When Rick walked out of the polling booth, the 146-year-old polling volunteer who had taken our information and had us sign our names was waiting for him. In her stern schoolmarm voice, she told him that in the future when he came to vote, to not wear the T-shirt he had on.
Do you see anything wrong with this? It doesn’t say “Terrorists are People Too“, or “My Pitbull Eats Kittens for Lunch“. Who is going to be offended by this? And there was no one else in there besides the donut eating poll nazi’s that saw it.
Being the polite person Rick is, he smiled and lightly laughed an “OK” to the lovely lady and we departed the building.
But when I got home, I got to thinking more about the experience and wondered if it was really the shirt that was the problem or the button he had pinned to it.
I mean, this could really scare the bejeezus out of some people.
Apr 022012
My family is a bunch of pranksters. I blame it on my Mom. She was always up for a good joke and she was darn creative about it.
So naturally, this passed down to me and when the kids were young I would try to come up with little pranks to play on them on April 1st. One year I was fortunate enough to have this day fall on a Saturday. I don’t remember how old they were, just that they were old enough to stay up late on Friday night with no badgering from me to get to bed.
Saturday morning I went into their rooms at 7 am and announced in my most perfect panic stricken Mother voice, “Girls, it’s 7 am… you’re going to be late for the bus!” I never saw 2 kids fly out of bed so fast!
It was so hard to keep my poker face, and I had to keep going into my bedroom to stop my giggles from giving me away. In 10 minutes flat they were running down the stairs preparing to head out the door to the bus stop. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, I calmly and quietly said “April Fool.” If daggers could fly out of eyeballs, I would have been dead.
They didn’t much care for my little prank, but on that day a seed was planted that would prove to be their revenge.
One year later I was at my-then job as an Assistant Manager at the local Hardees. We were just preparing for the noon rush when the phone rang. When I answered it, my oldest was on the other end, all out of breath and panic in her voice. She was talking a mile a minute and I was trying to calm her down so that I could find out what was wrong. When I finally got her to stop the hysterical crying that had consumed her, she announced that Dad had been changing a tire on the truck and the jack fell out from underneath it. He was trapped and they didn’t know what to do. I think I actually went pale.
I was concentrating so hard on my daughter that I hadn’t noticed that I had drawn a crowd of co-workers listening in on the conversation and trying to figure out what was going on. Finally a calm face appeared before me, looked me straight in the eyes and gave me some words of wisdom: “Sandy, it’s April Foods Day.” I think my jaw hit the floor. The laughter on the other end of the phone confirmed this wise person’s words and at that moment I knew only one thing: my kids had sought their revenge and executed the perfect prank on their Mother. They timed it in such a way that they knew I would be busy and not be able to put 2 + 2 together.
They did their Grandma proud. That was also the last year that any pranks were pulled on April Fools Day. I just don’t think that I could take another one like that.
:::
Yes, I’m posting this on April 2nd because I didn’t want to give my family any ideas.