On March 2, I showed up for a doctor’s appointment that I scheduled a year ago. It was in my phone’s calendar. They looked blankly at me, checked their system, and said “Your appointment is on the 21st, not today!”. Huh. I’d been puzzled that I hadn’t received any “YOUR APPOINTMENT IS SOON, PLEASE CONFIRM” messages like most other practices do.
Today, while cleaning out my jacket pocket for the first time in, well, about a year, I found the appointment card.
For March 2.
I don’t know WTF happened on their side, but clearly both they, and I, thought it was March 2, last year.
Hah - when I was doing phone support a couple years ago, we got the occasional call that required a translator. The most exotic language I ever encountered was Haitian Creole (which was close enough to French that I could follow along, but it would have been tough for me to handle without the service). Most translation-required calls were Spanish. Having never studied that language, I was surprised at how well I understood the conversations after a few calls. Likely it helped that the topics were quite similar from call to call.
Gallbladder? Sounds spot-on for how mine behaved, except the bouts tended to develop mid-evening. It happened off and on, then stopped for a few months, then happened again 3 days in a row (shortly after which, the gallbladder was evicted from the premises). You’re also at about the same age my brother was when his went bye-bye (I think he was 68, actually).
I’ve gotten a few in Haitian Creole. I’ve gotten some Russian calls. Almost all of them have been from my old neighborhod- many from my old zip code. I’ve previously gotten what I thought was a Spanish call but turned out to be Portugese. Language calls can be fun if you don’t have to use the bathroom, aren’t really hungry, and if they don’t come in late in the day requring you to work 2 hours past your usual clock out time.
Ouch!! Bathroom can be… non-negotiable at times. I could miss a meal (looking at me, you would not believe that). And working past time, in my role, I think I’d have had to tell the person I would call them back in the morning, as any kind of overtimer was strictly verboten. Our incoming lines closed at 4, and we were on the clock until 4:30 giving us, in theory, time to wind up any call we were on. I was never stuck on one past 4:30 anyway.
I’m planning a trip to Iceland and Glasgow in early August, which means I need to get a passport. I’ve collected all the paperwork I need, downloaded and completed the application, now I just need to file it. According to the website I can do so, and have the requisite photo taken, at my local post office. There’s supposed to be an online appointment scheduler, but when I try to use it I get a “this service is not available” notice. Fine, I’ll call the Chapel Hill PO to make the appointment. I very helpful woman explains that they are not currently doing passports because they no longer have an employee qualified to do so (they’re in the process of getting someone trained) and that I should make an appointment with the Carrboro office. Getting there on public transit is doable, just takes longer, so I get the number for there and call. The auto-answer tells me that unless I’m calling about a package I need to wait for the next available operator. Then I get put on hold for several minutes, at which point they apparently just hang up on me. So I wait a while and try calling again. Rinse and repeat for several hours.
It must be spring. My street tree is dropping pollen all over my car. I use the windshield wipers to remove it every morning, but it’s getting crusty at the edges of the windshield. Must e time to wash the car.
Well, that’s not at ALL frustrating, is it?!!! We never got passports when we lived in NC, so we never had to deal with all that, but unless transit has improved a LOT since we lived there (CH, then Carrboro), that will indeed be a hassle.
You can get your photo taken anywhere - UPS stores, for example, though it’s convenient if you can do so at the same place and that’s not the limiting factor for you!! Good luck!!
NO ONE would convict you of smashing every leaf blower in your neighborhood. I hate those things…
Me, I rushed through grilling (salmon, mmm…) so I could get out before dark and take a leisurely walk by a nearby lake. It’s always so quiet there…
… unless an older woman on a recumbent bike is riding slowly by, hollering in a whiny voice (into a phone? One can hope so…).
I was counting on the “by” part of riding by… but she’d bike down the path, stop, whine for a bit, turn around and come back the other way, raising her voice even louder.
You might ask why I didn’t say something, but all this happened at a distance. She was half a football field away, but so loud that I would’ve been even more disruptive if I’d yelled at her. So I took the courageous route… which led far away into the scary (but noise-suppressing) woods.
Many years ago when I was still living in California, a lot of landscapers threatened a boycott on using their leaf blowers. My response was the same as all of my neighbors’: DO IT!
I got my foster dog from animal control just over two weeks ago. She had been a “police assist”- in the car with her owner when her owner was arrested and, when he was taken to jail, she was taken to animal control. They held her for ten days in case the owner or a relative was able to reclaim her and then she was released for adoption or rescue. This is all completely standard and legal.
But, of course, things had to get complicated. Her previous owner was released from jail and went to animal control looking for her. They told her where she is. He showed up with an ID#. It’s definitely her. He wants her back, but doesn’t have a solid place to live. On one hand, she’s mine, fair and square (or, at least, she belongs to the shelter). On the other, that’s not really fair or right. She’s 12 years old. She’s his dog.
On one hand, he loved her enough to go looking for her as soon as he could and not give up. That’s not the given you might think it is. On the other, she’s obese enough that the vet has diagnosed her with “pickwickian syndrome,” which basically means she has trouble breathing because she’s so fat. She didn’t get that way on her own. Her nails were so long that they were turned sideways. She wasn’t getting top-notch care. But she also wasn’t exactly abused or suffering life-threatening neglect.
But. In the end, I said I would hang onto her for him and then return her to him when he can take her. She’s his dog and he loves her. She’s also my dog and I love her. I’ll keep working on getting her to a healthy weight in the meantime. I planned on having her for a while anyway.
Anyway. Rescue is complicated. I just want her to be happy and healthy and have a good life.
Think of your ten large. That should brighten your mood immediately! LOL
Yeah, I get your angst. In the summer, they like to mow the lawn outside my bedroom window at 7 am on a Saturday morning, which is pretty much the only day I can sleep in as long as I want. It sounds something like this:
