I am so mad I could spit nails. I paid my electric bill on the 4th of this month, as always. I have had run ins with them before because the bill is officially due on the first. If you don't pay on the 1st they add a $20.00 late fee. I have explained to them until I am blue in the face that my check comes on the 3rd or 4th and that it is impossible for me to pay sooner than that. I don't see how it can be legal for them to add what amounts to a surcharge of $240.00/year to my bill just because I don't get paid on the first. And, no, I don't have the money to pay a double electric bill one month to catch me up.

So Saturday, I get a bill from them for $130.00 (huh?) that must be paid by Tuesday the 9th or they will disconnect my electricity. I have just paid all my bills, including rent and there is no way I can give them that amount unless I go without food and medicine. Two days does not give me time to get a payment from LEAP or other agencies that help with utility bills. I don't know what on earth I am supposed to do. I guess I can light my house with coleman lanterns and give all the food in my freezer away, so it won't spoil. This is just outrageous. I have all my receipts from the past 6 months, and I don't understand how they can do this to me. Oh. GRRRRRR! :thepain:

Read your PM.

I'm so sorry Sam. I've never heard of electrical surcharges.What's up with that? It's not like they have to ship electricity in.:eyebrow:

Call them up and talk to them. Have them explain it to you. Then explain your situation to them. And if you don't get a reasonable resolution, hang up. Call back a few hours later when a diffeent shift will be on. But talk to real people rather than dealing with computer-generating automatic billing. ask to talk to a manager if you're still strugging after the second attempt.

And your food will be fine in your freezer for quite a while, just don't open it more than is necessary.

Oh and a bill on Saturday (6th) is likely to have been mailed before your payment on the 4th was processed ...that's why i say speak to real people and have them explain it. they can tell you if that's the case)

Oral surgery.

That ain't a euphemism is it?

People who think that screaming at you changes anything. Also, people who never get their mail until it is officially in the hands of a government entity that won't take "no one told me" as an answer.

:(

Got in an accident Saturday (noone was hurt) - definitely not my fault, but cop wrote me the ticket. Don't wanna go to court, but don't wanna admit guilty if I'm not.
And today would've been my dad's 73rd b-day. Happy b-day pops.

Very tired and beaten. I'm really tired of working a job where I help people, get paid, and then have to give the money back 6-8 weeks later if the people change their mind. Makes it pretty hard to budget your own life if you never know if the money is yours or not.

Ripped my nose ring/bone out with a towel and lost it thru a crack in the floor damn it.

shopvac?

and panty hose

The cracks in our floor go all the way thru, so it's in the basement somewhere, probably behind the oil tank. I ordered a new one from amazon and have a big stupid looking silver hoop in until it arrives.

Made me laugh.

Pics?

http://is7.itookthisonmyphone.com/m/...240&height=240


edited for clarity...jinx is not upsetting me today. yet.

?

What's bothering me today: I will never live in Portland, Oregon.

What brought this up?

BTW, Seattle is even nicer - IMO. Now that you mention it, it does make me sad that I will never live in Seattle again.

Looks ok to me. Though I do like the tiny diamond you sometimes see.

What do you normally wear?

I've had one of these in for... 8 years or so. This hoop is just more... more. And silver. I don't even remember buying it. The gold version must have been too expensive or something.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg

If that were .... 9 inches long ... what you've said here would be astonishing ... :o

On a blog I read, someone's asking for travel tips to Portland. Man, I love that place. I love Seattle, too, but Portland's better (imo).

:idea:
I need to drag my husband out there for a trip. Maybe I can get him to share my obsession.

"She's got everything a girl might need,
She's a tribal animal yes indeed,
But she hasn't got a bone through her nose,
Through her nose.
She hasn't got a bone through her nose"

If it ain't one thing, its another. I have to go get a tooth pulled this afternoon. Oh, the pain! If I survive, I'll let you know.:thepain:

Leave it under your pillow and get your money back.;)

I think the dentist kept it for his pillow. He says the space where the tooth was is really going to hurt when the local wears off. He gave me some heavy duty pain killer for when the agony kicks in. I can't wait. Also if I seem wierder than usual you'll know why. :3_eyes:

Kept it? What a rip off, I'll bet he's got a woodie for the tooth fairy. :yesnod:

yeah you have to ask them if you want to keep your teeth. Beest asked for his wisdom teeth, the dentist thought he was weird

This:
 

That was in response to my SPCA application. Fuck.

Aww crap. Bad luck Moar :(

Fuck cancer. Friends of mine lose their loved ones to it too often. That is all.

fuck cancer

cancer...fuck it.

stupid fucky fucking cancer.

A good friend lost his mother yesterday to cancer. 61 years old. Way too young to go and needlessly suffered for too long. The toll on the family was and still is a terrible burden. I am so sorry for their loss.

oh and FUCK CANCER!

And the bad news just keeps on coming. My uncle Frank - my mother's brother passed away on Wednesday.

Wow – I haven’t been here in a while. So this sucks monkey balls, the company I’ve been with for 20yrs is closing. We’re a union mechanical contractor and most of our work was government funded contracts. Unfortunately, here in the south the govt. hasn’t had a lot of work going on this past year, well not what we do. Plus, it’s been an uphill battle for the past couple of years, because of a few bad decisions. Anyway, I’m talking with a welding inspection contractor who needs someone to work in their office and we’ve done work with them before so they know me and know the work I’ve done here. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make a smooth switch.

Man, Pete. :( It sucks to have so many terrible things pile up like that. I'm wishing you strength.

Compared to other people's sorrows, this is a whine.
I'm posting it to get it off my chest, and in the hope of some wise words.

Mum has a group of friends that meet up every month or so. Nothing official - some are still in the Police and therefore the meetings have to fit in with their shifts. But when they can, they host meals for eachother.

Mum decided it was her turn, despite misgivings - she is ashmaed of this house and what she has compared to people in a similar income bracket. I don't know if I hear this more because I live with her, or whether she just feels it more as she gets older and more bitter.

Anyway.

After various conversations about what other people have done and what Mum herself likes, we settled on a tapas evening. Yes - we. I was going to be involved up to the minute the guests arrived. I was completely happy with this - they are a group of friends of about five years standing, I had no intention of muscling in!

I had a couple of dishes already sorted - patatas bravas, meatballs, anchovies, dipping sauce and bread, rice, Spanish omelette. I talked Mum out of making a chicken casserole as a dish, because it doesn't work in a tapas menu, but agreed chicken wings would be appropriate. Once numbers were confirmed I was potentially going to look up a white fish recipe (something Mum loves when we eat tapas in a restaurant) and/ or a sardine dish.

I'd even been online looking at Spanish tablecloths - second hand eBay of course! - and various things to theme the evening without going overboard. I was even going to dye some eggs (I'm doing some for Easter, so they're on my mind) and use them as mini containers for egg-salad topped with roe.

So today I asked Mum if we were going to Thame (a local town) on Tuesday. It's their market day, but we were going to check out the up-market delis and supermarket. It was cancelled before I went away because Grandad was ill.

"I'm not doing that" said Mum. What? Now going to Thame? "I'm just doing fajitas"

And that was that.
I'm hurt, offended and disappointed.
When was she going to tell me? Did she not realise I was looking forward to this as a mother & daughter thing and would be taking on 90% of the work? And if she's just going for an easy option (which someone has already done anyway) why doesn't she just order in Chinese?

When I am less upset I will say - please do tapas. I will take on all of it, just give me a budget. I will really enjoy it - I so much miss being able to cater and theme.
I doubt it will come to anything - when Mum closes a door she double locks it, bolts it and checks the windows too.

I am trying not to sulk. The childish part of me thinks, "Sod you, not only will I not help with your fajitas, I'll not help with any dinner you make in the near future - I will cook and wash up after myself and you'll regret cutting me out of your planning in future. I will make you suffer for hurting me."

I know that is wrong and stupid.
I am fighting that reaction.
Help me put this in perspective.

Not sure I can help SG. Does your Mum know how much she's hurt you? Did she think she was saving you some bother? Did she simply not realise how much you were looking forward to doing it? Is she afraid she'll appear to her friends to be over-compensating for the house with a fancy spread?
Perhaps you can go for a brisk walk on your own-io to calm down, and then try what you've said - offer to do to all within her budget?
Hugs, dearie!

Pull back, SG. Sounds like you took the reins from you Mum and she thought twice about it and wanted them back. For perspective, detach from what you need/want from this.

from Amazon? oh, Jinx, why didn't you ask me? nose bones are evil, anyway, and what is the material?

Ask you what? No they aren't. Gold.

SG

(Please note, I'm trying to look at this from your mother's perspective, inorder to maybe help you see another POV and hurt a little less/not get so hurt in the future).


You say you had no intention of muscling in, I'm sure that's true, but seems to me to be exactly what you did, especially "talking her out of making a chicken casserole". and the rest of the prep is I I I I I .... I do a similar meal thing with my friends, I'd be real peed off if some-one took over like that. Granted, I would say so from the start, but I'm probably somewhat more bolshie than your mum.

Ebaying new (to you) tablecloths? Way OTT. If she already feels ashamed of her house and what she has compared to other people, suggesting she needs extra to impress is more likely to reinforce this, rather than allay that fear -especially if you have to buy second hand to do so.

Did she not realise how much her decision/change of plan hurt you? Probably not -it hasn't been a mother-daughter thing up to this point (as in -in all the years she's been doing it, not your relationship as a whole), it's her lunch with her friends. And how is it a mother-daughter thing if you're making all the decisions and doing 90% of the work? Maybe she knows she would feel awful if you did all the work and yet didn't join them for lunch, but she justs wants to have lunch with her friends? So she decided to do it herself, not realising you had pegged it as a mother-daughter thing.

It's clear you love to plan, shop and theme. But maybe you should back off a little on doing it for your mum if it's going to hurt you so much when she rejects it. Remember, she's been living without you for a long time and that your coming "home" for a while was primarily for your benefit rather than hers -that doesn't mean she'ds not loved having you closer, but it does mean that her return to the mother-daughter-same-roof relationsship was somewhat less voluntary than yours.

I can't really help you get over this one, but my suggestion is why not ask the school where you volunteer if they'd be interested in you theming, planning and shopping for some event for them? Maybe a MayDay celebration or a summer sports day? Or a fundraising evening -I bet a Tapas bar would go down a treat there, so all the work you did for this need not go to waste. Or perhaps there is a local residential home who would appreciate a tapas night and would have a small budget to fund it?

Or why not go the whole hog and place an ad offering your services as a Tapas party planner. Maybe self-employment in this direction is the key to your future?

I'm sorry you are hurt, but perhaps your mom is just feeling a little suffocated by your love and attention and doesn't know how to verbalize let alone act on that knowledge.

I talked to her about it today.
Still trying to talk her round a little.
But she has decided, as I expected.

It really wasn't that she thought I was taking over - at least that's not what she says and it rings true. She just thought it was "too much bother". Again, it's a clash of personalities. She thought I over-planned my trip to Amsterdam, but for me it was an extra five or six months pleasure I milked out of a six day trip!

So the more I made suggestions re what we could do, the more worried she was by it, and the more I tried to reassure her that it wasn't a bother and I'h handle it, the more she felt I was making too much of a meal (!) of it.

So we're doing fajitas, and I'm allowed to do the starter :)
I'm not going to bombard her with suggestions and ideas this time, so she has no reason to feel overwhelmed.
I'll just keep my head down and do what is most helpful on the day. And if I sneak a few table decorations in, it's not going to hurt, eh?

Am much less consumed by the whole thing today. Sorm in a taco shell. Sorry, and thanks for the replies.

@ Jinx; unless you have a very well healed and stretchy nostril piercing, nose bones can cause a lot of trauma when removed because of the bulb on the end. If your nose likes it, then fine, but most people nowadays tend to stay away from nose bones.

gold should be fine. If you ordered a stainless or some off brand thing from Amazon, that would not be good.

I was happy with the last bone for 8 years, I guess you missed that part... although jim did make me bleed ripping the ring out with pliers. It's fine now.

I've had many other bits of nose jewelry (was first pierced at Zipperhead, with a gun[gasp!] back in 1990. Nothing is as good as a bone.

Cloud it teh authoritay on piercing. RESPECT THAT!

What's upsetting me today? Well, since you ask it is the strong possibility of a new high speed railway line being built between London and Birmingham that will pass about a quarter of a mile from this very spot.

Trains are planned to travel at 200+mph and much of the track in the immediate area will be on a flyover or embankment. Very little can be done about noise abatement in these circumstances and trains will pass about every 4.2 minutes. Journey times will be reduced by about twenty minutes. Couldn't people just get up a little earlier?

Apart from anything else, the whole pointless caper will cost about £30 billion. Has nobody told the sanctimonious Transport Minister, Lord Adonis, that the country is stony broke?

We haven't had a Peasants' Revolt here since 1381 so I think it is about time for another.

Carruthers. (Off to sharpen his pitch fork):mad::mad::mad:

Thing is, Car, I'm on the other side.
Anything that brings down house prices in Bucks is okay by me.

If it means I can rent a place and still live close to the 'rents (not possible at present) I'm all for a little train noise. Have you seen how close the new flats are being built to Aylesbury Station? They'll not only have trains in their living rooms, they'll have annoying announcements they can't make out (well, I never can) in their bedrooms. And they are still out of my price range!

A train to Brimingham every 4.2 minutes? I do question your source, chick. That's less waiting time than on the Piccadilly Line for sure. I doubt there are that many people in the country who need to get to Brum that quickly (yes I know it's a major rail terminal and people would be travelling onwards, I am being facetious).

One of the problems is that people across the country are clamouring for high speed rail links to London.

I know, because we have been trying to get one over here for several years and my inbox is full of emails from people pushing for it, and trying to get every local politician (down to the lowliest Parish Councillor) to lobby the Transport Minister on their behalf. Our MP receives semi-regular petitions for such a link.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't. But whatever you do: not in my backyard.


[eta] That sounded a little more harsh than I'd intended carruthers. It does suck if you happen to live just next to the new line. But it has to go somewhere (if you going to have it at all, and there are huge economic arguments for doing so) and someone's house is going to be near. We are not a b ig enough country for this stuff to veer miles away from towns and villages. The only places you could take it to get far enough away from conurbations that it doesn't affect somebody, would put it right into the heart of the Greenbelt, and that would upset even more people. And even then it would have to meet up with the populated areas at some point in its journey.

I sit on a planning committee every three weeks. It's fascinating, but there is a lot of NIMBYism. Everyone wants our country to up its use of renewable energy; but nobody wants a wind turbine within ten miles of their house.

SG and Dani,

Good afternoon to you both.

OK Sundae first.

Yes, but in that instance the railway was there first and the flats were built, as I'm sure you know, on an old industrial site (Schwarzkopf). Eyebrows were raised, not without good cause, when planning permission was granted for a residential development so close to the railway. That said, the trains that run from Aylesbury to London are humble commuter stock of three or four carriages. The proposed 200+mph trains on HS2 will be 400m long. Admittedly you won't hear them coming; the first indication will be the 'whoosh' from the pressure wave and then the train noise itself.

That's fourteen trains an hour, ie seven in each direction or one train movement every 4.2 minutes.

I picked that up from the Bucks Free Press website. LINK

Dani.......

Don't worry. I've got broad shoulders. It's my Yorkshire/Viking ancestry that does it you know.;)
Unfortunately, the proposed route is right through the Metropolitan Green Belt and the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Both are statutory designations designed to protect the area.

Have a look at this Google Street View picture.
The line will pass left to right in the middle distance of this view. OK it doesn't have the scenic grandeur of Snowdonia or North Yorkshire, but surely it's worth protecting?

Anyway, just my two penn'orth.

All the best,

Carruthers

That streetview looks like my part of the world.

Whereabouts are you from, Griff? I hope you don't mind me asking.

Carruthers

North-Eastern Pennsylvania (NEPA). We have a lot in the way of green rolling hills and hedgerows.

Is there a bustle in your hedgerow? Don't be alarmed.

Thanks for that, Griff.

I'll explore the area on Street View later on and do my best to wear out Google's server.

I wondered if you were going to say Virginia. Friends lived there for a while on an RAF/USAF exchange posting and they said that the scenery was similar to here.

Carruthers