Day 3 - 238 -- Waiting

If I had to sum up the day in a word, it would be 'waiting' -- many things resulted in delays to get me through to the ends I had in sight. The writing was a bit slow, but by the end of the evening, I have an outline that almost makes sense for the points that have to be presented in a week and a bit. I chose to work from home today in order to avoid the construction and hallway disruptions. I needed to focus and there are way too many things in the office to pull my attention elsewhere. So -- I remained at home.

I had a few errands to do today and they could all be done online or on the phone. I slotted these in after breakfast so they wouldn't pull me away from the writing later. It took until after noon to complete these. One online subscription renewal had a higher price than the mailed notice. I had to hunt for the toll free number to make a call and then to wait on hold until a service representative was available, all the while being reminded how important my call was and that my call would be answered in sequence. That one finally done, I moved on to pay two bills electronically -- not much hold up during that process and the software seems to have a short cut now if paying more than one bill. Score!  Once that was done, the cable which had been pixilating like some wild dance of the fall leaves on  a windy day, began blacking out. When I changed the channel it seemed to get its groove back, but only briefly. This has been happening with increasing frequency for 2 or 3 days. So, I called the cable service number. I was again listening to vile music (where do they get that stuff and why can't they have a decent audio for it even if it is ghastly?) and constant reminders that my call is important yada yada yada. I explained the issue to the contact person, who asked if it was occurring with both TVs. That seemed like question 193, so I barked a bit that I hadn't checked the other TV and couldn't let her wait while I did the work (actually the work of someone else to determine their cable problem -- and all for a rather princely sum that I pay them). <sigh> I hung up and went to reboot the machine on the other TV. It showed all channels with some minor pixelating every few seconds. I walked back down the hall, called the line and was again faced with the pseudo-tunes and numbing voice telling me the same thing over and over and over. When I got to a live soul, they said I'd have to have a service call placed. During the call the screen went to the wonderful "please wait while this loads" message -- on every channel on both machines. It was now in the disaster zone. The repair person would be by within the next 3 hours (granted this is a miracle so I was pleased about that). Ninety minutes later the phone rang with a recorded message -- thankfully I listened to it all, as I'd assumed it was the usual - "the repair person is on the way to you now" -- message. It was not. It was from the cable company telling me the problem had been fixed and to presa '1' if it was fixed on my screens, '2' if it wasn't fixed and I wanted to keep the appointment or '3' to cancel the appointment. Now -- how is one to run around the house turning things on in time to check and still be able to press a button before the silly message thingy times out? <smile>  The issue was resolved and I pressed 3 to cancel the call.

Interestingly, while on hold trying to block out the wretched grade 1 music recital recorded on an old reel to reel that was transferred to 8-track that was transferred to cassette that was transferred to cd, I had a couple of songs run through my head. Each of the choruses had the same phrase in it. I settled on one from a wonderful female group -- second gen recording artists with super harmonies. It even is a bit relaxing <grin>. Enjoy!

Hold On -- Wilson Phillips