Bahamas

Check out Pass the Zaki Sauce for some beautiful pictures of where Drew and I are going on Saturday!

I can't wait!

I Ruined Christmas

So I just want everyone to know that I tried to be as nice as possible to the lady from Comcast (as well as the other 5 people from there that I have talked to). Because really it's not their fault. They didn't make the policy.

During the winter break of my freshman year at Carleton, I worked at Rivertown Traders, a catalog company that was a part of Target Corp. They hired seasonal workers and lucky for me I got a six week break from school and therefore time to make some money. So one day I get a call from a lady who is calling about her order. Everything is computerized, so I look up her stuff and see that one of her things is backordered. I explained to her (in a nice way) what the situation was and gave her an estimated date of arrival. She then proceeded to scream, yell and curse at me because I had personally "ruined her son's Christmas."

Now perhaps I was emotionally fragile at the tender age of 18, but the second I left the building that day I sobbed. My mom picked me up and I remember just crying and crying for what seemed like hours because there was a woman somewhere out in the world that hated me and blamed me for giving her son a horrible Christmas morning. I actually think I would still cry that hard today if it happened. But ever since then I try not to get angry at the people on the end of the phone because I have been in their shoes. But, wow, I now sure do understand that lady's frustration and anger.

So I hope the Comcast people I have spoken to have understood my frustration and reported it through what every channels they have to go through. And I hope they also have not felt at all upset or worried that I was mad at them. I have done my best to clearly express my feelings about their policy and only hope they have heard.

A Need to Vent

So someone explain this to me.

So we are in the new house and today we were supposed to have Comcast come and set up our phone, cable and internet. It had been four long days without these things and I was quite excited to be able to flop down on my couch and watch some crappy TV and be able to catch up the blog. So today I was hanging out all day waiting for them to come during their allotted slot of 1-5pm.

Now Drew flew to Virginia this afternoon for an insurance conference. When he landed, he called me to tell me that he was there and safe as well as to tell me that he had a voicemail from Comcast saying that they had been to the house at 1:20pm. Now I was there in the house ALL DAY. Caper was there. Caper goes nuts and starts barking if someone opens the front gate and that did not happen. There was even one point where I saw a Comcast truck go by and so I went to the front window to look out and no one was there. The doorbell never rang.

So I call Comcast and ask what the heck happened. They said that when they called the number they had (which was Drew's cell phone which was off because he was on a freakin' plane) no one answered and so they ASSUMED no one was home.

First of all, they are coming to the house to set up the frickin' phone service so clearly the number they were calling was not the number to the house.

Second, they came to the house but did not attempt to ring the doorbell even though they had an appointment set up so clearly someone should be home.

Third, they did not apologize or even seem to see the ridiculousness of their policy.

Finally, they don't have any openings until the 22nd of August.

RIDICULOUS.

I am paying them a whole bunch of money for these services and they don't even know how to ring a doorbell.

Now, I tried not to be too rude or upset on the phone to the lady from Comcast, because clearly she was not personally at fault but she had zero ability to emphathize. Her supervisor was "away from her desk" (is it wrong that I don't believe that) and is supposed to call me back. We'll see.

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Otherwise, the moving this past weekend went well. We are totally out of the condo. I'll let you now what happens but for now I am blogging from KWW's. Next week we are off to the Bahamas. So I may be a bit absent these next few weeks.

Blame Comcast.

Painters, Masons and Movers

Oh my!

So things have been very busy for us. The painters started today and are well on their way of transferring our ivory-blah house into a very green and blue colored house. Our fun colors include saybrook sage, buxton blue and cocoa sand! Check it out and paint a room with Ben's help. It's a great procrastination tool.

The painters should be done by Friday, so this weekend we will be busy busy packing up the house in preparation for the movers, who come on Monday. So, hopefully this means we can actually sleep at our own house that night.

I also had a mason guy stop by this morning because during the inspection of the house the guy found a step crack in our brick foundation. The guy was kind of weird on the phone so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. He showed up and immediately seemed perturbed when I showed him the spot. It was WAY too small a job for him he said and then couldn't even recommend other people or avenues to explore in order to get the job done. So that was annoying but I quickly got over it when I say the paint going up on the wall.

So things are moving really quickly and are getting exciting. Can't wait to show you all pictures of the work!

My Thumbs Are Not Green

Hopefully they will be soon because we have a big yard full of all kinds of plants that I don't know much about. But the previous owners did leave us with a sprinkler system all set up, so I don't have to worry too much about things dying in this incredibly miserable heat.

Yesterday I went to the nearby garden store and bought some flowers to plant in our front planters. There had been some weird, non-colorful and uninteresting green plant in them but since the previous owners moved out a month before the closing, they got a bit neglected and were a nice crisp yellow. So I planted the flowers you see below. Not hard work at all and in truth I have done my fair amount of planting at my parent's house while growing up. But I was only outside for ten minutes working on them and I was sweating like crazy. For my personal sanity and the sake of our electricity bill, I hope this heat wave ends soon.