It's the little things in life

[rivka]

Saturday night I left my cell phone on Ben's boat. Which is a good 40 minute drive from my apartment.

Sunday afternoon I went tearing out of the house to go pick up saoba from the Metro station - she's visiting her daughter in northern VA, and had graciously arranged to spend Sunday with us. I got about three blocks away before I realized that something was very very wrong - the steering wasn't responding properly and the wheels were making a dreadful noise. I limped into a gas station and found that the left rear tire was extremely flat. We therefore spent a goodly piece of our visiting-with-Barbara time arranging for the car to be towed, waiting at the service station for the slow and overworked counter person to process our paperwork, and doing all our traveling in my small and beat-up old Toyota.

This morning I was unable to establish a net connection. Given that Misha is able to use our shared cable connection with no trouble, that means the fault probably lies in my modem card.

Also this morning, the service station called. In order to pass the state safety inspection, we're going to need to replace the front tires too.

And the end of the month is here, which means bill-paying time, but we're about out of checks and the new ones I ordered haven't arrived yet. This is partly my fault, because I was dilatory about ordering them. But it's partly not my fault, because there was some sort of problem with our order that has delayed things considerably. So I'm either going to have to convince our surly bank customer service people to print me some starter checks with our account number, or I'm going to have to go through the mind-boggling hassle of withdrawing large amounts of cash and paying all of our bills in money orders.

These are all trivial problems. We have money in the bank to cover the cost of three new tires, which would not have been true at this time last year. Hell, at this time last year we weren't sure about having money in the bank to cover our bills. We travelled safely to see our family, and our friends travelled safely to see us. We have each other's love and support. Those are the big things.

But damn, the little things can wear you down.

(Update: Damn it! I see that this comes up as Monday, November 26th. Which means that, in all that happened yesterday, I neglected to call my father on his 65th birthday. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.)

Comments

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

*boggle*

You have to *order cheques*? Here, when you get to a certain number in your old chequebook, the bank send a new one automagically. Usually about six months before I actually need it, since I pay most of my bills by direct debit and as many of the rest as possible by way of telephone banking, but even in my student days when I did neither of those things, I don't remember ever having to wait for cheques.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yes, we have to order checks. I decided not to order them through our own bank, because for some reason they charge an arm and a leg for them. (I anticipate your next question: "you have to pay for cheques?" Yes.) So instead I ordered them through a private company. I think I'm paying about $14 for two 150-ct boxes of duplicate checks and a box of return address labels.

It's a hassle. Even though I get plenty of warning that I'm running out (my checks come in 25-check booklets, and there's an "it's time to re-order" slip that comes up when I still have about 50 left), I never manage to place the order in a timely fashion.

[(Anonymous)]

Ooh! It's your wee squirrel! Love him. :-)

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Her. Don't worry, I won't tell her about your grievous error. *grin*

That's actually my favorite userpic. There were several pictures in the photo shoot, and it's amazing how many different moods and expressions Ben managed to capture from an inanimate object, by adjusting the angle and the light. I picked this one because it's the most imperious.