Ooh, the internet… I can finally get my fix. The withdrawal symptoms were killing me.

I hate Time Warner. There internal communication structure must be akin to sending messenger rats.  Because nobody is on the same page as anybody else, and nobody seems to know what’s going on, though they’ll all swear up and down that they know. Unfortunately (unlike the last city we lived in), we don’t have any other options.

Even though we technically have internet now, I can only use it if I’m sitting on the floor in the media room because my computer has to be directly plugged into the box.

The technician came out here today to install the wireless internet and - get this - didn’t have any wireless internet equipment. So he has to come back tomorrow to finish the job. WTH???

I HAVE BEEN WITHOUT PHONE OR INTERNET FOR A MONTH BUT APPARENTLY YOU NEED LONGER THAN THAT TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO PUT A BOX OF EQUIPMENT IN YOUR TRUCK????

Ahem. Sorry. Withdrawal symptoms coming out again.

He was also supposed to install our phone line while he was here and left without doing that either. According to him, he couldn’t get it done today because there was something Customer Service was supposed to do that hadn’t been done (he wouldn’t tell me what “it” was) so I had to call customer service because they needed to talk to me before they would do “it.”

Customer Service had no idea what I was talking about. But rather than wait for me to call them, Technition Guy just left - so he wasn’t there to explain it to them.

They finally determined that the problem was due to the fact that the line wasn’t scheduled to be activated until 2:04 pm, and once 2:04 pm got here everything would be fine.

So let me get this straight… They scheduled a technician to set up our phone line at 9am, but then scheduled the phone line activation for after 2pm, knowing that the line activation was necessary for the tech to finish his job. Again, WTH???

I tried to tell them that no, that couldn’t have been what the technician was talking about because he said there was something he was unable to do, so he would have to come back out here before the phone would work. But they assured me that wasn’t the case. I asked them to call Technician Guy to figure out what he meant, but they pretty much ignored that idea.

Well guess what. 2:04pm came and went and still no phone service.

On my second call to customer service (which was actually my 5th call, but we won’t go there) the Customer Service Rep determined that the technician was waiting for them to send a signal to the modem or something. Which they did in like half a second. I pleaded with her to just CALL THE TECHNICIAN to figure out if that was in fact all he was talking about. She said she knew he meant and left it at that.

Time Warner employees must grow warts if they actually make an effort to communicate with the technicians. That’s all I can figure with the way they avoid it.

Assuming Customer Service Rep #2 was correct, I’m incredulous that the technician decided to LEAVE without finishing the job, as opposed to wait for 5 seconds to have this done. So now we’re another day without a phone.

Did I mention that this is the only house I have ever been in where my cell phone doesn’t get a decent signal?

Figures.

I love it when things work out exactly the way I hoped they would. Even though it was a major pain, the last minute problem with the appraisal turned out to be in our favor because the relocation company (in record-breaking decision-making time) just decided to drop the price on the house. So now we’re getting the same great house for less money and hopefully we’ll still be able to close on time. We won’t know until the last minute, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed.

And in other news, I was sitting at my computer when I started hearing these strangely suspicious popping noises coming from the living room…

It has now been confirmed that the innate obsession with popping bubble wrap has nothing to do with learned behavior and can only be instinctual.

Caught!

• I hurt myself from yawning too big.  I think I overstretched the tendon that connects my jaws or something.  I know.  I’m now in competition with Sammy Sosa for lamest injuries.  I wonder if Workers Comp covers that kind of thing.  It was the boredom brought on by my job that forced me to yawn, after all.
• I dreamed that I had an affair.  With J.  No idea who I was actually married to in the dream.  But J’s conscience got the best of him at the last second and he backed out on me.  So I woke up guilty, bummed, grumpy, and horny.  I hate dreams.
• After 4 years, my dog has just discovered that he has a penis.  He has been licking it for 48 hours straight.  It’s driving us crazy, especially since he sleeps in our room and he’s decided that licking himself is more fun than sleeping.
• Don’t buy hair dye that costs less than $10.  Especially if you use white towels and don’t want to see it bleeding onto your towel 4 days after you’ve colored your hair.  Just saying.
• Also, don’t believe the stuff on the box of cheap hair dye that says it comes with highlights and lowlights and multi-faceted color that doesn’t damage your hair.  Bollocks.
• Tomorrow we close on the house we’re selling.
• Tomorrow we’re supposed to close on the house we’re buying.
• Yesterday we found out that the house didn’t appraise for near what we had agreed to pay for it, so now our financing is messed up.
• The appraiser totally discounted the sunroom, which would have made up the difference in the appraisal price.  He refused to count it as part of the square footage of the house (as a previous appraiser had done) because it didn’t have duct work or something.  But since nobody else in the neighborhood has a sunroom, he couldn’t find “comps” so he just didn’t give it any value at all.
• Because, you know, if nobody else has one then it must have been free to install.
• Apparently if you can’t find one just like it then it’s easier just to pretend it doesn’t exist at all than to do some more research and assign a value based on an educated guess.
• Lazy ass.
• So we’ve asked the relocation company to lower the price on the house because it doesn’t make much sense to pay more than a house is actually worth.
• But it’s a relocation company and it will probably take them a week to get back to us because when you have 150 middlemen, things don’t move too quickly.
• And we don’t know what they’re going to say.
• So we don’t know if or when we’ll be closing.
• Annoying, since we’re supposed to move out of our house in 2 days.
• Regardless, we have to disassemble and pack up our computer tonight or tomorrow, so I’ll probably be offline for a few days.
• Bummer dude.

I keep sitting down and starting to write an entry, but get a little overwhelmed so I give up. Life has been a whirlwind recently, so rather than try to document it all, I’ve been avoiding the computer. I think I’ll just start with some bullets and hopefully get everything down. And come back later to add more bullets for the things I’ve forgotten.

I like bullets. They make me feel organized even when life seems a little out of control.

• We’re in the waiting game on the house selling thing. I think everything is pretty much taken care of and now we’re just waiting for the closing date. Hopefully we’ll close on time because we have the closing of our new house (which is dependent on the closing of our current house) set up for the same day, so they will both be delayed if anything goes wrong.
• Speaking of going wrong, the people we’re trying to buy the house from are being relocated, which means that a relocation company is handling the sale from here on out. Which means 3x as much paperwork and everything is taking 3x as long. Which means that we’re really pushing it to make the aforementioned closing date because they’re TAKING FOREVER.
• The good news is that we had the inspection done Saturday and even though there are several things we’re requesting they address (or pay to have us address) there was really nothing major wrong with the house.
• Half our computer supplies are packed away so I don’t have my card reader and therefore can’t download the pictures I took in New York (or any other pictures I’ve taken recently) so that’s kind of irritating me right now.
• The trip was fun and I loved hanging out with Stereoette and I got to eat some great food and do a ton of walking around the city and it was a much needed break from the stress of house. I tried not to rub it in that our mortgage payment for our new humongo house is going to be the same as what she’s paying for her efficiency apartment in NY. Ah, Texas real estate…
• Little Button is really growing up. She’s now the traffic light enforcer. Wherever we go, she’s sure to point out “Uh-oh, it’s red! We have to stop now,” and “Green! The light is green! We can go now! Go green go!” through the entire car ride.
• Her repertoire of complete sentences and appropriate phrases seems (to me) to be remarkably advanced over the other kids her age. She’s still substituting “t’s” for all her “k’s” which is only a problem because her name starts with K. Well, that and it’s a little disconcerting when she starts talking about “kitties” in public.
• She’s very polite and uses “please” and “thank you” often. When we go to the public play areas in the mall and she gets mowed over by other children, she always says “Excuse me.”
• She’s still in love with her Grandmommy and Grandpa and would happily move in with them if we let her. I might let her when she hits the rebellious teenager stage.
• I think I’m going to have to give in and read Harry Potter. Even though I already know what happens in all the books. I’m not very good at commitment so long term projects rarely get finished, and reading is no exception. Maybe I’ll get the books on CD and listen to them in the car.
• I have a ridiculous amount of laundry that needs to be done. Ridiculous, I tell you.
• Moving Company is coming tomorrow morning to give estimates. Hopefully they’ll be able to see past the piles of laundry everywhere.
• Need to clean the house again top to bottom. We got out of the habit since we’ve stopped showing the house. But the appraiser is coming this week and we need to make a really good impression.
• Having so much laundry and cleaning to do makes me feel overwhelmed.
• I am totally annoyed that “maternity” is the “in” fashion right now. I was appalled when I went to Old Navy yesterday. I’m short-torsoed and store my fat around my middle - do you know how hard I have to work already to avoid looking 12 months pregnant? Every piece of clothing I saw was formless and rendered my body completely devoid of any feminine shape whatsoever. Grrr…
• I played 4 back-to-back softball games Friday night. Apparently we’re so behind in the season (due to rain) that they decided to have the entire playoff tournament in a single night.
• Consequently, every muscle in my body hurts. I could hardly get out of bed this morning. I’m getting too old for this.
• We came in second, in case you were wondering.
• The last game we played was a game we lost (hence the 2nd place), and we actually didn’t mind losing because we were so worn out that we didn’t want to play another game, which we would have to had we won.
• Actually, as beat as we were, we probably wouldn’t have minded playing another game too much if we felt like the teams were evenly matched. The other team had 4x as many players to rotate through and got to rest for an hour before the final game, so they were full of energy. And all of their guys were 6′4″ and built like athletes. We didn’t have the same advantage, so every minute was a fight just to stay in the game. That said, we did pretty well and might have won if they hadn’t hit that grand slam.
• I managed to close my knee in the car door today and it’s starting to bruise. It hurts.
• Thanks to the stress of buying/selling/moving/etc, I have 3 ulcers in my mouth. Yippee. Now I just need my face to break out so my whole head can be swollen and aching.
• My superstitious side is thinking I probably shouldn’t have said that.
• It’s after 11:30pm.
• My brain is starting to shut down.
• Good night.

Well, the guy that we’re trying to by the house from is being an ass about it.  He wants his asking price and not a penny less and he’s totally playing hardball, which sucks.

But I don’t really care right now because I’M IN NEW YORK!  See you when I get back!