Bagels

If you ever have left over food, just leave it on the facutly room table, and it's sure to be gone in a matter of moment.

I know this. Yesterday, I bought two bagels. One for breakfast on Monday. One for Tuesday. I put Tuesday's bagel on a side table. Out of the way. I've been doing this two-bagel process for about 3 weeks.

Today (Tuesday), I arrive at work to find my bagel is gone. My breakfast is gone. It wasn't in the public domain free-for-all area as described above. And yet, it was gone.

Very annoying. So I had to head back out into the cold morning to get food. I've had two dreams recently about Sausage McMuffins with Egg, including one where they renamed it an "Austrailian Toaster Biscuit with Egg". So I naturally just had to go to McDonalds for my semi-annual gut-busting breakfast.

And once I was back at work, I put up a snarky note near where the bagel was last seen:
"I bought 2 bagels on Monday. One to eat Monday. One to eat Tuesday. I left Tuesday's bagel here. Tuesday morning it was GONE. The pregnant lady's breakfast was GONE! Shame, shame, shame. -- Jill"

Is it a baby . . .

Below are a few pictures from an ultrasound a had about a month ago. (Sorry about the delay in posting).

Definitely a baby . . .

Or is it an alien? . . . .

Much like it's father?

Just kidding about the father part. Doug is actually to the right of the alien. It's a scene from "Mars Attack", when Doug was doing acting in Hollywood.

Is it a baby . . .

Is it a baby, or is it an alien. Below are pictures from an ultrasound I had about a month ago. (Sorry it's taken me so long to post them.)

Definitely a baby . . .

Meet Jim

I'd like to introduce you to Jim, my garden knome. Marla got him for me for my birthday from Flamingo Jim's in Rockaway Beach. He weighs about 30 pounds. No joke!

I hate Verizon, part 4

It's probably not surprising that I didn't hear back from Verizon with regards to the email I sent them. I didn't even get the courtesy, "We have received your email and a customer service rep will be getting back to you", generic email.

So I buckled down, (would have taken a shot of alcohol if that wasn't frowned upon in pregnancy), and called them again today.

Phone call #1. Navigate the horrible phone maze system. Talk to someone, who needs to talk with someone else to confirm something with billing. Puts me on hold for "3-4 minutes". I agree to this, because what else can I do? The hold music even sucks as Verizon. It's tinney, comes in and out in waves, and doesn't even make a song you'd recognize.

And then, the call gets disconnected.

I am determined to get this taken care of.

Phone call #2. Navigate the horrible phone maze system. Get connected to someone who promises me "Excellent customer service." I try not to laugh derisively. I explain the short version of the problem, and he says something to the effect of, "No problem. I just credit that to your account."

"No, I don't think so," says I. "The person I talked to three weeks ago said the same thing, and it didn't happen. I want the money put back on my credit card or have a check written to me. I want my money."

"Okay," he says. "We'll get a check out to you."

"When can I expect it?"

"3-4 weeks."

"Are you kidding me? Your company is going to keep my money for nearly three months, over a charge that you mistakenly put on my account? That is horrible."

We went round and round like this for about another minute. But I settled for the check option, with a confirmation number.

And then he had the nerve (though it's probably off a script that he has to read) to ask, "So, did we provide you with excellent customer service today?"

"You did what you could, but I wouldn't call it excellent. Goodbye."

Still hating Verizon, but maybe this will all be resolved in 3-4 weeks.

Thwack

Driving on I-5 today, just a mere mile from home, my windshield got hit with a rock. You know that sound. It makes you jump, and you look to see if you can tell where it hit.

Well, today there was no question where it hit. There was instantly a 'snowflake' about the size of a quarter eminating from the site of the hit.

I must admit. I am a rock chip magnate. You can see at least 5 other obvious sites where I've had this windshield repaired, and numerous other ones that are small enough you have to know where they are.

In going to the repair clinic, they were impressed that I came in right away, and congratulated me on my promptness. It was the type of ding that was guaranteed to spread. And, as we were to find out in the repair process, it was actually TWO rocks that hit at the same time.

Now that's rock-chip talent!

I hate Verizon, part 3

Below is the email I sent to Verizon today. I'm still waiting for a reply. (And I'd like to thank my mother for my personal advocacy skills in the face of consumer injustice!)

"On my Oct 25^th statement, I was billed $199 (plus taxes) for an on-site installation fee. We never had anything installed at our house. (That part is a long story that will make me cry with anger, so I won’t go into it now.)

I called customer service (and I hesitate to call it that, as I had such a bad experience), and was told that there would be a credit to my account of $199 (plus taxes), but that it wouldn’t show up until my next statement. I was given 2 weeks of free service for the ‘inconvenience’ of having to loan Verizon over $200 for the month, since they couldn’t immediately credit my credit card.

Well, in looking at my Nov. 25^th statement, I have not been credited the money that was improperly charged to me on the Oct. 25^th statement.

I am very angry.

At this point, I want you to either immediately credit my credit card for the correct amount or mail me a check. I AM going to report this to the Better Business Bureau. There is nothing acceptable about being charged over $200 dollars for a service I did not receive, and then having to wait over a month – and at this point, going on two months – to receive the credit.

Please reply back by the end of the business day on Wednesday."

I am a hazard

Last night I was driving to church, at about 6pm. It was dark and rainy. Just like in the Snoopy Chronicles.

(As a side note, it's been raining constantly and raining hard for 24 hours now. Unusual for Seattle. If I were still in Tillamook, I'd be expecting Lake Lucerne to be making an appearance and for school to be canceled due to flooding.)

So I'm cruising down I-5, and the car behind me flashes its brights at me. I ignore it at first, thinking the car had just gone over a bump, so it seemed like the brights were flashed. But, alas, it happened two more times. "WHY?", I wonder. My lights are on. And there isn't a murderer in my back seat, like in those urban legends.

Oh. Perhaps my tail lights are out, so it doesn't look like my lights are on. I check it out at church, and sure enough, no tail lights.

Which means I until I get them replaced, any time it's dark and I'm driving, I need to drive with my hazard lights on. It's very annoying. Now, no one knows when I'm using my turn indicator. And the clicking of the hazards don't match up with the beat of the music. And I feel compelled to drive in the slow lane, even though my car is functioning just fine otherwise.

I've mentioned to several people how both my tail lights are out, and so far two people said they noticed that I had one out, but forgot to tell me about it. There ought to be some sort of easy way for drivers behind you to let you know that a tail light is out. A special blinker they can use in their car. It could also be used when you leave your turn indicator on . . .

Later on today, I'm going to an auto supply store to get new bulbs. I'm going to install them while I have a break at work, because at least at work I have covered parking. (Did I mention how hard it's been raining?)

I realize, however, that there are several bulbs in the general tail light area, and I want to make sure I'm replacing the right ones. Not the brake lights or the turn indicators. So I was paying attention to other cars' tail lights as I was driving to work this morning. I thought it would be easy to find another car like mine on the road (same make and generally the same year), but it's more of a challenge than I thought. It quite interesting to see how many different designs there are for tail lights. Makes for a 'fun' little game during the commute.

Now I'm off to the land of light bulbs. Best rainy wishes to all!

I hate Verizon, part 2

Yesterday I pulled up my Verizon DSL bill off the internet. Guess what bonus charge was on there? $199 for an on-site installation fee. That's right. They charged us for installing the phone jack (see previous Verizon post) that they refused to ACTUALLY install because of stupid billing procedures.

You might imagine how this customer service phone call went.

Phone call #1. Let's start with the horrible navigation in the automated menu. Finally reached a live person. She had such a heavy accent, I could barely understand what she was saying. AND she couldn't find my record of existance. AND she transferred me back to some menu of no-return.

Phone call #2. Horrible navigation. Live person. Slightly lighter accent. After explaining that I had been billed for a service I never received, he put me on hold to check with the tech services people to confirm that we never received the service. Fortunately, that one all checked out okay.

Here's where I ended up crying on the phone. He said that my account had been credited the $199 on Oct. 25. The bill I had in front of me was dated Oct. 25, so where was the credit? I have automated credit-card billing, and in looking on the internet, saw that I was charged the full amount of my Oct. bill (~$250). There was no credit of ($199) listed on my card. And the guy kept saying that I had a balance of zero, yet I had been credited the $199. Last time I checked, zero doesn't equal -199.

Apparently, the credit of $199 is just showing up internally until my next bill. I still have to pay $250 this month; my money won't be refunded until next month. I'm glad our budget isn't so tight that we can't float this amount of money for an entire month. Instead, Verizon earns a tiny bit of interest off it while it sits in their bank and not mine.

For my 'trouble', we are getting 2 weeks of free service. A whopping $18 (or so).

I hate Verizon.

The News

Hi All-

Sorry for the lack of postings recently. There's really only been one piece of news, and it's been in the roll-out phase since last Thursday.

I'm preggers. With child. In the family way. Expecting a wee one. Knocked up.

I'd post a picture of the pregnancy test, but that would revolve around me being at home to take a picture. So please excuse the lack of visual aids.

This kid is due to launch May 24, just a few short days before my sister Marla. It's wonderful to be sharing this experience with her.

What else might you want to know . . .

Yes, I have morning sickness. Yes, I've been quite tired. Actually took yesterday off and slept all day.

Yes, we are very excited for Little B to join us!

No illicit drugs. Really!

I was looking at the itemized receipt from my most recent trip to Fred Meyer for groceries. Among the items being picked up were an assortment of instant mashed potatoes. Easy side dishes!!

I've heard of "BC bud" as slang for marijuana, but had no idea I'd bought some during this trip to the store.

Betty Crocker's Mashed Potatoes rang up as " B C MSH POT"
And the Idahoan Potatoes read: "IDAHOAN POT"

Cracks me up. Truly, I was just buying mashed potatoes, officer. :)

I'd be rich if . . .

If someone paid me a dollar for every time I dribbled water down my chin (and often onto my clothes) when drinking out of my water bottle, I'd have a lot of money.

Other 'money making' situations:

And out-and-out spilling of an entire cup of coffee. Bonus for it happening in the car.
Rock chips on my windshield.
Dribbled coffee down my chin and onto my clothes.

Many could be found from my teaching experience, from every time a student says:
Do we have homework tonight?
Did I miss anything yesterday?
Is this going to be on the test?

I'm sure there are other things to add to the list. I'll keep you posted.

Red v. Blue

Nope. Not a discussion on democratic or republican politics.

Coffee creamer is the thought of the day. Liquid vanilla yummy-ness to be exact.

My preferred brand/flavor is International Delights. I know quickly which brand to buy at the store based on the color of the lid.

The down-fall of this brand, however, is that the lid gets some sort of super seal after the first few uses. So when you open it, it sprays a fine mist of creamer over anything within a 12 inch radius. A not-so-nice sticky mess.

Every now and then, though, I get the Coffee Mate brand (red lid)
Usually when it's on a good sale AND I have a coupon! The lid is much preferred from the anti-mess perspective.

Here's my moment of brilliance . . . the red lid fits on the blue container. So now I just wash off the red-one between containers and re-fit the blue creamer. No more messes with the creamer I like the most.

Verizon made me cry (almost)

We recently changed our high speed internet from cable to Verizon DSL. Saves us about $10 a month. And it works quite fine, thank you very much.

HOWEVER, we need to move the phone jack. With in the next year, we will be doing a small remodel, which will result with the phone jack being in the bathroom. Rather than in our "office".
So, two weeks ago, I called Verizon Online. Told them the story of how we need to move the jack. They referred me to Verzion (the phone side of things), as V. Online deals only with DSL issues, not hardware issues.

(I should also mention at this point that we have what is known as dry-loop DSL, meaning the line is dedicated to DSL only, as we don't have a land-line phone. Only mobile phones for us. That we are non-land-line-phone consumers becomes a huge problem, as you will soon see.)

The next day, then, I worked on calling Verizon. What a nightmare. It took me FOUR tries to navigate through their automated system. I kept arriving at 'dead ends', being offer options I knew I didn't want (Is this for a new account? Is this about billing? Do you just want to go in a corner and cry yet?) FINALLY, I was able to talk with an actually human being, and I described our situation with the jack.

Apparently, I didn't initially get the right department, though I'm not surprised as I kept pushing random buttons until a "customer service representative was able to assist me." I ended up being transfered to 3 different departments, as NO ONE seemed to know who I needed to talk to about having a new phone jack install. It's like no one ever had be assisted in this way before!

Enter my conversation with the rep. from dept. no. 3. He heard the situation and was about to transfer me back to Verizon Online (after all, this has to do with DSL, right?), when I interrupted with a "No, no, no. V. Online is where I started. They directed me to Verizon as this is a hardware issue." And the guy finally realized that he could actually set up the service call. It was to be a week later, on a Wednesday.

This whole process of getting a service call set up took 40 minutes. No exaggeration.

Fast forward to Tuesday, the day before the appointment. I hadn't received the friendly automated appointment reminder from Verizon, so I decided to give them a call. After all, if I was going to take the afternoon off of work for this venture, I wanted to be sure they were showing up.

So I called Verizon. "Navigated" my way through the automated system to talk with a real person. Which, again, is not the person I was really needing to talk to. Transferred to person Number 2. This person finds no record of my appointment, and feels I should really be talking to person Number 3. Person Number 3, in combination with person Number 4, is finally able to give me an answer.

And what might that be? They can't help me. Neither Verizon nor Verizon Online are able to come out to our house and install a new phone jack. "You'll just need to find someone."

At this point I was about to blow a gasket. And cry. I expressed great displeasure and frustration with this whole situation. Without swearing (out loud), I used phrases like:

• "I feel like I am a person with a third arm and you don't know what to do with me"
• "I know this isn't your fault, but I'm very frustrated with the situation"
• "I hope you pass along my complaints and frustrations up the chain of command"
• "This is RIDICULOUS"

Why can't/ won't they help? It boils down to us not having a land-line phone. Because of this, we don't have an account with the billing department with the Verizon phone side of things. And it's the Verizon phone people that do phone jacks. And apparently, they can't talk to the Verizon Online billing. So since they can't figure out how to bill us, we're screwed.

To make sure I understood why they couldn't help us, I said, "So let me repeat this back, to make sure I'm clear for when I'm telling all my friends about this."

You would think that someone else in the known Verizon DSL universe would have been in a similar situation. Apparently not.

This particular round of talking with Verizon took 36 minutes (according to the cell phone).

But wait, there's more! On Wednesday, I'm shopping at Fred Meyer (instead of waiting for the non-existent service call) when I get a call. It's a service guy from Verizon saying he just pulled up my order on the schedule. I laughed a derisive laugh and explained to him the whole situation. We both bemoaned this aspect of telephone regulations.

And the original phone jack still remains.

Gloria

Today's entry is definitely more serious. Gloria Strauss (the 11-year old daughter of one of my co-workers) died peacefully in her sleep this morning after a four year battle with cancer.

Some of you know a lot of the details of her journey with cancer over the past four years. If you don't (or want to know more) the Seattle Times has been following her story at www.seattletimes.com/gloria. Part 7 will pull up first, but all the links are there.

As you might imagine, it has a tremendous effect on us here at school, as we all have been praying for her and her family this entire time.

It was so very quiet in the halls this morning. Surreal.

Please pray for all of us as we go through this grieving process.

That's all I have for now.

Peace to all.

If I were in charge of the world, part 1

I often use the phrase "If I were in charge of the world . . . ", followed up by "and CLEARLY I'm not!"

Here's a math example of how I use this phrase. The word "tangent" refers to both a trig function and a line that touches a curve at exactly one spot. Those two things are not related, yet use the same word.

So when teaching students, I say that "If I were in charge of the world . . . there would be two different words for these two different situations. Whoever was in charge of word choices with 'tangent' is not on my favorite person list."

On Tuesday, again I incanted the phrase "IIWICOTW" after visiting the dentist. Found out that two of my fillings need to be replaced. WHAT'S WITH THAT? IIWICOTW, if you've already gone through the agony and money have having a filling done, it should last for a lifetime. Not 10 years! What a bunch of bunk.

So next week I get two more hours in the dentist chair. Ugh. In my lifetime, I've spent a lot of time and money at the dentist, and it makes me feel like I have poor oral hygiene. Truly, I do brush and floss daily. So I blame genetics (sorry Mom and Dad). Didn't really have a fair start on this one.

Until later,

Jill
The one wishing she was in charge of the world. Sometimes.

Adventures of Super B

Well, we just finished Spirit Week here at school, with an assortment of dress up days. Friday was super hero/ action figure day.

I didn't have anything immediate come to mind for how to dress up. However, I did have a purple cape with silver rick rack. (WHY I have a purple cape is another story . . .) So, I figured I should create my own super hero.

Enter Super B (referring to my last name) - Saving the world from illegal algebra, one equation at at time!

I made my own t-shirt, using the above quote, with an iron-on decal. Note in the picture the red correcting pen behind my ear.

I am such a nerd. And I warmly embrace it!