Monthly Archives: April 2006

Last night was my last class at my second yoga home downtown. Yoga Bhoga is moving across the river next month. It isn’t far, but too far to walk from the office which means I have to drive. It’s not bad, just not as nice as walking.

I have about 80 things I want to do today and sitting here typing is not one of them. See ya.

This week has been a little frazzling between the whole, you know, thing that I’m not going to write about again (I hope) but still hasn’t totally gone away and what for me has been a busy activity week. Monday I worked late because of the 2 hours at the Drs. and then went to the store to buy saltines, applesauce and bananas for the week plus pick up a prescription so I got home late; Tuesday was yoga night so I got home late; last night I met my long-lost-and-now-found-again friend Tonya for a wonderful walk and dinner so I got home late and tonight we have tickets to see Harvey Pekar and when we get home (late), Mom and Erin will have arrived.

This long wind-up is supposed to explain why I’m phoning in another entry. Death, Taxes and CSRs via Consumerist, someone has to say it:

... another form of grief that often comes about after the passing of a loved one: sorting through a lifetime’s documentation of accounts and finances, trying to get the deceased’s consumer affairs in order. Unfortunately, his father’s affairs seem to have been in a bit of a mess. But no matter how well organized a loved one’s finances are at his time of death, it’s cold comfort to go straight from the funeral to the endless sorting of papers and documentation.

We’re posting this largely to suggest to our readers that they might want to have a serious discussion with their parents about what to do in case they die.

I slept like a dream last night. Wow, it was fantastic. I woke up once and opened an eye long enough to see it was 4:30am and thought: I’m sleeping, awesome. And didn’t wake again until the alarm went off.

Sorry to keep yammering about my digestive system but that’s all I’ve got going right now. I guess that’s not true. I keep a card at my desk for things to blog about but sometimes those things don’t look so interesting and I can’t imagine why I scribbled the note in the first place or the note has become obsolete.

For example, scarves. I used to not get scarves in winter. You’d toss one around your next and it didn’t add a lot in terms of warmth plus it became another obstacle to trip on or drip into your lunch. Then, I learned this cool way to secure it from my cousin Lisa and I was going to do a photo demo which I never got around to. But, now it’s spring and even though the weather still is cold and sucks ass, if I’m going to demonstrate anything, it’s going to be open-toed shoes. I will WILL warm weather into being.

So we’re back to my health. Yesterday when they took my pulse, it was 80 and she said that was normal. Not for me. Yikes. I’ve been feeling like my heart was racing which I suspect has to do with all this food deprivation. Last night I drank some organic sports beverage juice. I’ve always wondered what those drinks have in them and if I’m reading the label correctly, this is juice with salt added. Couldn’t you do that yourself? Secrets revealed!

Also the Dr. said I could eat jello which is apparently a clear liquid. (?) I can’t remember the last time I ate jello (I’m supposed capitalize that and put a TM after it or something, aren’t I?). We are not a jello family. Even the extended family. If you come to a summer potluck in Orleans, no one in my family will bring something with jello. Just not part of our repertoire. I’m shoveling some peach jello in right now. I’m hungry.

We also aren’t pot roast people. I can’t ever remember my Mom making pot roast. We ate lots of beef but it was stuff you’d throw on the grill. I can’t remember any of the cooks in my extended family making pot roast. I made a pot roast for Easter Dinner. I read several recipes and mainly used Mark Bittman. I only ate three bites, remember the digestive thing, but I didn’t love it. Bob and Priscilla said it was good and they arm wrestled for leftovers but I don’t think this will become part of the regular rotation. Bob likes red meat, maybe I can find some other fun recipes that will please him.

Finally: if you get the IFC Channel, please check out Henry Rollins show. (A possessive belongs in there somewhere.) He is so intelligent and funny and informed and articulate. He does great interviews (this week: Werner Herzog) and has fun music (this week: Frank Black). You’re probably thinking you don’t need one more show, but this is only once a week and it’s less than 25 minutes. Unless you’re say, my Dad, you will love it.

One of my latest favorite websites is Consumerist which talks about consumerism including stuff like killer deals and poor/excellent customer service experiences. I mostly like the customer service stuff. Horrifying/entertaining stories about people dealing with boneheadedness when trying to solve their customer problems.

The site also covers people with whom I have a hard time sympathizing. For example, the person who was unable to get his 2 for 1 coupon honored at some sort of hotdog and pita hut, the couple who recently were unable to utilize their coupon for 2 lbs. of free french fries (actually, I think this story had a happy ending but the real question is who could possibly eat 2 lbs. of french fries?) and people whining about trivial stuff like it took 3 days instead of 2 to get their random junk delivered from googlebuckszon.com because they have the free shipping option. You’ve gone your entire life without that thing you just bought. Is one more day really going to hurt you?

Here are two recent stories that I appreciated:

What the elderly want in a cellphone: call, hang up, voicemail, 911

They want only four functions: Call, Hang Up, Voicemail, 911. They want buttons that say EXACTLY: Call, HangUp, Voicemail, 911. They don’t want a security code for their voicemail because they can’t remember it. And they don’t care if someone else listens to their messages. They don’t want color screens – just big letters and numbers. They’d appreciate nonglare screens. They want bigger buttons that “click” to indicate they’ve hit it correctly. They don’t hear the “beeps” because their ears aren’t very good, but a “click” they can FEEL is what they requested. … They don’t want programming and in particular NO MENUS.

Might I add that I join the elderly on this one. I also don’t want to play music or watch TV on my phone. I don’t want to send and receive video messages. I don’t want to read webpages. And I don’t want the cheapest plan to be 5000 minutes for $100 a month.

Calls From a Stranger

The gist of this item had to do with receiving phone calls on a cellphone in Spanish. Turned out to be solicitation calls and illegal. The post included resources for dealing with problems like this:

If you receive one of these calls, enter the area code and prefix here at Telcodata.US. Complaint to the customer service of the provider listed. They will shut the unsolicited phone spammer down.

UPDATE: Verizon sues some telemarketer using the same tactics. And here’s one man’s story of how he successfully sued a telemarketer who called him at 5 in the morning. He also provides a slew of resources for tracking down phone solicitors.