Monthly Archives: July 2008

July 31, 2008

Bank of America customer for life!

By rhonirenee

I strolled into my last day of work in Indy this morning prepared for a laid back, chitchat filled day. I casually checked my email and found an urgent message from Bank of America informing me that they had detected unusual activity on my checkcard and my account was suspended until they heard from me. I immediately logged into my account to see a charge for the purchase of a plane ticket on an airline I’d never heard of. The charge had also been rejected. I called the toll free number immediately.   I talked to a efficient and friendly fraud alert rep who confirmed the past few weeks worth of transactions with me. The one that tipped them off was the plane ticket. IN BARCELONA. There were also charges to Nap*ster, I*tunes, and a couple of other places. They didn’t let any of those hit my account and promptly deactivated my card so no more charges can be made. I don’t have to go through the hassle of claims & trying to get my money credited back to me. I might have freaked out a bit at the idea that I’m driving across country TOMORROW and have no bank card. But she quickly reassured me. All I have to do is stop in a branch & pick up a temporary card until my new one arrives.

I’ve heard plenty of complaints on BofA in the past, heard the customer service horror stories, etc. But I have to tell you, they earned my loyalty today.

2 comments | posted in life

July 28, 2008

the little things

By rhonirenee

“uh-huh…okay. I’m leaving the office and will be home in about half an hour. Is the chicken defrosted? I thought I’d barbque it tonight for dinner. Okay, sounds good. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

I was privy to that half of a cell phone conversation while waiting for an elevator this afternoon. Those few sentences perfectly illustrate what I want: a home together, consulting each other on dinner that will be eaten together, knowing “see you soon” means being able to touch each other – not “we’ll get settled in our respective abodes and turn on a webcam for an hour”.  It’s the little things, the day to day things, that I’m looking forward to the most.

So when I heard the conversation, I smiled so much that a woman I’ve never met had to ask me about it. And I got to answer “Because in a week I get to have conversations like that one. And I hope to never take that privilege for granted.”

(Now when I turn into a raging lunatic venting “seriously how difficult is it to pick up a pair of socks off the floor?!!?” please direct my attention to this post. Or smack me upside the head. Whichever.)

1 comment | posted in life

July 28, 2008

I got nuthin

By rhonirenee

Well it’s one o’clock in the morning and might as well be one in the afternoon for as awake as I am. There’s 101 thoughts chasing through my head most of which I could muffle to a dull background buzz that would serve as mental white noise.  However Jon and I had a tantalizing discussion tonight that stirred me greatly and I could’ve easily continued had I not known how exhuasted he was.  I love that the nature of our relationship allows us to talk about anything and everything in a loving and supportive manner. But sometimes love means knowing when to just shut up…a difficult concept for me but one I’m working on.

So. Here I sit.

The talented Wandering Author left a most helpful comment on my last post (thank you!) referring to himself as a “lurker”. I had half a mind to do a post calling my lurkers out of the woodwork…I know you’re out there. And then I realized I have to give you something to comment on and I’ve been a little short on posts lately. As the title says…yeah, nothing. In a week I’ll be settling into my new home (a week! eek!) but until then, my life still revolves around boxes and how to fit the most into a limited space.

Wow. I might have just bored myself to sleep!

Leave a comment | posted in Blogging, Random

July 22, 2008

Updating for the sake of an update

By rhonirenee

Hi. I’ve been conscious approximately two hours since stumbling in my front door after work and the only reason I roused myself that long is because someone was coming by to take another material possession off my hands. Gods but craigslist can be awesome.

I would love to regale you with exciting stories but unless you count the armed man prowling my apartment complex parking lot and accosting residents, I don’t have any. (And I am quite thankful not to have a run in with him to share although I WAS invited to “come party” with some guy I’d never seen in my building who referred to me as “shawty” and “fine” and was obviously drunk and/or stoned as I was coming in from taking a carload to the storage unit so was sweaty, grungy and rather fragrant. And might I also mention only one person has EVER gotten away with calling me “shawty” but this time I bit back a few snarky comments and settled for the evil eye while scurrying to the relative safety of my abode)  Combine that with the fact that there have now been fifteen (15!!) homicides since the end of June in Indy and suddenly I’m disinclined to wander around town at all hours.

Life is moving along much as it has for the past few weeks with the minor addition of a time warp that alternates between days dragging to a near stop and speeding past at a panic inducing rate. My sanity slips just a bit more each day that I’m away from my workout routine and subsisting on the junkiest of foods.  The emotional/mental roller coaster is becoming progressively more extreme although the worst of the depths have been neatly avoided by simply sleeping more than is really necessary under normal circumstances. At least I recognize irrationality when it strikes and try to take appropriate steps not to lash out and/or breakdown.  I don’t deal with chaos well and that’s an apt description of life in general right now. But it’s a phase. In a couple of weeks when we’re mostly settled, I’ll be back to my sanity maintaining routine with the addition of Jon and I am oh so looking forward to that.

1 comment | posted in life, Random

July 18, 2008

Photo Friday – Flight

By rhonirenee

This week’s  Photo Friday word is “flight”. My idea of hanging out at a dropzone all day and photographing skydivers landing/packing/etc isn’t feasible time wise. Oh well.

Leave a comment | posted in Photo Friday

July 18, 2008

Next Post

By rhonirenee

In the midst of this whole “moving across the country” drama, there have only been two aspects to cause me stress. One of those is my job situation. For the past 10 years, I have been comfortably employed in one field.  I have worked to make myself a valuable asset to any company within this industry. And I should have no problem continuing my career once I’m settled in Boise.

But. (There’s always a “but” isn’t there)

I never truly chose this career path. It was handed to me on a silver platter. I desperately needed to something to support me and my child. And beggars can’t be choosers, right. It’s not a bad career, not a bad industry and I’m very fortunate to have had the opportunities that I have. But if I were to list the top five things I would LOVE to do, would be passionate about, it wouldn’t even rank.

With Jon’s support and encouragement, I have the opportunity to make a career change. I have the option of doing something I’m passionate about rather than something that just pays the bills. And so yesterday on a whim, I checked a couple of places in Boise where I would love to be a team member. One had a position listed that I was very excited about. I have no idea how long it’d already been listed but unfortunatly today it’s no longer open for recruitment. It’s only the first I’ve looked at; I’ve only casually browsed for openings. But I was very disappointed. The same organization has another opening that I have a better chance at being considered for. It doesn’t spark excitement like the first did and it’s much lower on the organizational chart but it’d be a foot in the door. I want to be someplace that is making an effort to make a difference in the community. Someplace that is reaching out to those who need it, someplace that is striving to make our world a little bit better. I’m drawn to the non-profits, to the shelters. It’s 180 degrees from what I currently do. Oh some similarities can be drawn and alot of my skills will translate well. But overall we’re talking two different realms of reality.  Even if I can’t make a career change, I will be involved on a volunteer basis. There would benefits to staying status quo. But I’m not giving up on the idea. Not yet.

2 comments | posted in life, the move

July 16, 2008

My Kid, My Entertainment

By rhonirenee

TheKid has been spending the summer with my family. Technically he’s staying with my parents but my sisters are wisking him away to their houses on a fairly regularly basis. The middle sister & her husband gave him an XBox but they told him he had to work for them for 8 hours to pay for it. And they work him hard. The youngest sister has a two year old and a newborn and TheKid loves to help out with them. So my sister gladly lets him.

The other day BabySis started the dreaded “count to three”. TheKid looks at his two year old cousin and warned “You’ve done it now”. He’s also sighed to him “You never learn” after the two year old gets in trouble. But my favorite:

BabySis heard TheKid telling my nephew “no”. She walked in the room just in time to hear him say “Look. There are too many people around here who will catch you. And when they do, they’ll tell Pop*. You just don’t want that” 

I’m still laughing.

*Pop = my father. And the disciplinarian for two generations now. I think our boys are challenging him far more than we ever did.

1 comment | posted in Kidisms

July 15, 2008

lame part 2

By rhonirenee

I noticed tonight my ankle is finally swelling some right around the back of it, which would explain why it hurts worse when I flex my foot.  No bruising but propping it up? Bad bad bad. I had it in a chair earlier and the snaps/crackles/pops were quite impressive when I stood up. The cat even looked at me in concern. Probably just concern that I wouldn’t be able to feed her but hey, I’ll take it.

Anyway, point is it’s NOT all in my head.

I’ll have it looked at eventually but that costs money. And time. Both of which I’m in short supply. On a side note I find it interesting that I stopped this morning and filled up the gas tank at $4.03/gallon (and did a happy dance that it was under $4.10 I might add) but this afternoon on the way home, the price at the SAME GAS STATION was $4.15. Now how is that right?

So anyway, I’m not crazy, at least not where my ankle is concerned. Also, I should probably lay off the cap locks. And fragmented sentences.

Leave a comment | posted in me me me, Random

July 15, 2008

Warning: Too much caffeine could lead to delusions

By rhonirenee

The office building I work in is attached to a mall via a service hallway.  It’s a long, winding passage that ranked fairly high on the creepy meter until management installed mirrors at each bend, eliminating the ability for bad guys to hide around corners and jump unsuspecting employees, knocking them unconcious and taking all their worldly goods. Or their purse. Whatever.

 

Anyway.

 

Service hallway = mall deliveries. To avoid repainting every couple of weeks, the corners of each bend have been covered with a metal bumper. In 2.5 years I’ve never seen anyone cleaning that hallway. In fact they recently put down new carpet and I’m quite certain it’s because the other was too nasty to even attempt cleaning.  Today I went to get lunch and was checking out each mirror as I usually do (no bad guys!) when I noticed a woman hunched down, face turned away from the hall, acting as if she were CLEANING one of those things. But one hand was tucked close to her far side (the one facing away from the hallway, not the comic), holding a cord of some sort. Yes I examined her closely as I walked by. Cause that’s not creepy. At all.

 

She was gone when I walked back through 10 minutes later and all the other metal surfaces were just as smudged and gross as always. Truth be told that one wasn’t too much better.

 

*I* think I interrupted a Charlie Angel-isque spyish type person waiting for a mark that goes to the food court for lunch at the same time everyday. And her plan was to wait until this person passed her and then make her move, incapacitating them and dragging them back into a rarely used storage area of a store to plant a tracking device or finish whatever nefarious plot she was involved in. It’s quite possible that by breaking routine and going to lunch at the unseemly time of 10:50am, I saved someone from a dark fate.

 

Or maybe I should just lay off the movies for awhile.

Leave a comment | posted in Random

July 14, 2008

lame

By rhonirenee

I was going to sit down and actually write this afternoon but that tempermental muse of mine seems to be on vacation.  So I was going to edit some photos to upload from last month. After being thoroughly disgusted by the quality of about half the pictures I took and wrestling with Photoshop until my eyes crossed and I began muttering some rather unladylike phrases, I decided maybe it was time to shut that down too.

I’ve reinjured my ankle.  Hence the reason for my irritability. I injured it almost a year ago. It took almost three months to heal completely and there have been relatively few problems since.  It swelled up and turned purple a bit a a little over month but there was never any pain.  Now? It hurts and the last two toes tingle. But there’s no swelling, or very little swelling, there might be some around the back but there’s no bruising. So I don’t know. But it’s ticking me off.

3 comments | posted in me me me, whining

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