The next 50 years

So that's what's happened, the alarm company sold the "auto renew" contract bill, around $300 to a collection agency. Every morning at 8am Annette gets in to work and makes her calls to the various households she's supposed to pester for money.  She's got the right temperment and maybe works on commission, or it's a job she can stand and works for a salary.  Maybe she owns the company and has a law degree.  I'll never know because I don't plan on answering her.    She plans on hassling me.  I plan on turning off the phones because frankly there's nobody left who phones in to me. They text me or PM me on social networking.  Mostly the latter.  So I'm going to turn the ringers off.    I've dealt with collection agencies before.  They're like pitbulls guarding someone else's yard.  They don't stand down but they don't bring the fight either.  They just wear away at you like time or a water torture test.  The fact the ala...

So now a strange woman calls my cell phone with a name and number asking me to call.  She sounds like a middle level officiary, a frontline worker in the world whose job involves polite veiled threats.  Like yesterday's caller, her message gave no incentive.  I think I'd need to hear words like "we have money for you." It's pretty clear they want the opposite.  One unanswered phone call colours my whole morning with tension.  The dogs are barking at everything now because of my tension.  I'm startling at little things and sitting on pins.  Just from these phone calls from strangers who won't leave a message beyond "call me."  Yeah, why in hell would I do that?  Are you offering me a business opportunity?  Hiring me for a job?  Offering me coupons for chocolate?  Calling to give me a compliment?  By the time I get this tension out of my system (and today Dan's home so I am sure I won't) that phone will probably ring again ...

The credit bureau message didn't include anything to make me want to call her back so I won't.  She just mispronounced my name horribly and said to call her.  Yeah, right, I totally want to carve out time and energy for you, stranger. Still can't pay these fuxing bills till next week.  Last friday's 5 day hold still has 3 more business days, IE till tuesday expires, before we can touch our two grand. Nice.  NOT okay!  Twelve days to expire a 5 day hold!  For shit that doesn't even exist and is made up on the fly by THEM whenever they wish!!  AUGH!  and the credit bureau is calling and why on earth would I answer them? See, sell the house, pay the debts, all of them, slap it down and walk away with the equity.  Put the equity on a boat and live without credit/debt. Dump these people, their rules and standards, and their damn scolding and haranguing.    But we do need to get some cheques turned in and shuffle those numbers around o...

So I smoked yesterday.  No, not tobacco, and I'm not talking about inhaling smoke.  I'm talking about making really delicious food!  It's a shitty little smoker bbq and doesn't get hot enough so I'm always worried the stuff may be going toxic but all the same, nobody's ever gotten ill that I know of.  I worry a lot about these things.  I think, though, that the acid marinade and thick humid smoke during cooking inhibit the bacteria in place of the high heat.  It really never breaks 150f in there but I'm not dead certain.  I think the included thermometer can't be trusted.  Yesterday it didn't move at all!  Sure, you can't touch the smoker, but the thermo reads cool?  Well I don't know but the meat is tasty and we've been eating it without anyone falling ill. So I did up a half dozen chicken breasts, the boneless skinless kind, and two turkey breasts with skin and bone on.  The turkey was still not done when I wanted to take out the...

So most of life isn't much exciting.  It's interesting on a microcosmic level.  Like today I'm planning on smoking some poultry.  It's interesting because the stuff tastes so good and there's so many layers where you can affect the flavour for unique outcomes.  Yet, it's not exactly the stuff of story books.  Recipe books perhaps, but not stories! Another mundane yet dramatic event happened this morning upon waking.  Toby wan Kenobi soiled the floor most grandly.  There were black rabbit crap streaks on both rugs inhabiting every square foot of them!  The little guy's bunny butt bore the same brutal browns (yay alliteration!)  and he had to be rinsed in the sink.  I'm so impressed with the speed at which it cleaned up using the little portable Bissel unit.  It's got solution tank and gunk tank and simply sprays the solution, scrub with a brush, and suck back out clean.  The solution appears quite well formulated for toxicity s...

I quit interacting with my neighbour after the last time she shouted at me.  I don't know for whom or how many being shouted at is considered acceptable.  I only know when I was raised it was not and it only happened when someone uncouth was in the area.  A ragged neighbor or crazy man in public, that sort of thing.  Once in a while it was my parents losing it on us but again, that wasn't okay behaviour, it was "end of my rope" stuff.  So many people I've run into since moving into this house are such shouters!  I think it's this neighborhood and they think less of me for not tolerating it.  They consider me weak and selfish for making a fuss over a little facial blasting.  I wish I knew again that world where people control themselves a bit better.  I was less likely to lose it too, because I wasn't being pushed to it the way these shouters like to do.  They goad one until one responds dramatically.  I don't know why.  I hones...

Dan is already telling his family he's moving out closer to them.  I really think it'll do us good to be close to family, enough to see them now and then and when it's important.  The logistics of getting from here to there currently are just too big.  It's just that bit too far away.  While that's perfect for me and my family, not so much for Dan who actually likes his relatives.  Actually, some of the near relations I do in fact wish I knew live out there.  Maybe there'll be a connection.  I doubt I'll push it though.  I've surely damaged relations irreparably with everyone connected to my family, not just those I am required to interact with.  Either you socialize with all or you socialize with none, I believe is the general opinion.  It would be expressed more along the lines of "don't come crawling back when you need someone either!" Well I learned a long time ago that I can't really ask for things anyway, right back to santa wish...