Friday, September 6, 2013

T Minus 36: Stepping Back in Time

I snapped awake when my gut wrenched in the wee hours of the night. It seemed as if something evil had taken up residency in my stomach. I blame the Spam. I doubt the Spam was bad - can that stuff ever go bad? - but I need to place blame somewhere and it's either the Spam or the Ramen. I only know I felt miserable and simply wanted to go back to sleep. Every time I thought my stomach might be settling down, just as I started to drift off to sleep, I felt another spasm. It was worse than any nightmare!

I finally fell asleep again. I don't know what time but when I woke at 10:00 I knew I hadn't had enough sleep. As much as I might want to just lay in bed, I needed to get things done. The Hubby needed his letter from our new bank, so my first order of business would be a visit to the branch.

Of course, nothing goes smoothly when I go to the bank and today proved to be no exception. The banker I spoke with on Tuesday, who ordered the letter for me, was out to lunch. Nobody else at the bank seemed to have any clue why I was there or how to help me. I left my phone number with the branch manager and asked her to call me when the other lady returned from lunch.

I filled the time with a trip to the grocery to grab a few things and find some lunch of my own. I finally took a call from the bank. Someone found the letter and I could go pick it up. After lunch, I headed that way.

Again, not all went perfectly. I'm not the most technically proficient person but I must seem like a high-tech alien to some of the people I've been interacting with recently. Many aspects of business on the island feel like stepping back in time, but the banking system here makes me wonder if anyone in banking has ever even heard of a computer (the competing bank seems little better - The Hubby tried contacting them 3 times for a business account and has yet to hear back 2 weeks later). After a bit of prompting, and a small bit of cage rattling, I managed to get what I wanted and headed home.

Errands accomplished, The Hubby happy, I found myself with plenty of daylight left to allow me to be creative. I collaged. I painted. I enjoyed myself. Then...the phone started ringing.

The first call I answered turned out to be a rep from the airline that we think the dogs will be flying on. We say we think because the service we're paying to ship the dogs hasn't actually booked the flight yet. I suggested that the rep call The Hubby. I likely caused The Hubby to have a bad evening with that move, but The Hubby has the dogs and the paperwork, so I thought it best to risk listening to The Hubby complain about being forced to use the phone.

The second call, which came shortly after I hung up the first, was the car insurance agent. Nothing major, just another interruption to my creative thinking. Sears called a very short while later to confirm delivery of a new washing machine tomorrow morning. I wonder if it will fit in its intended spot better than the new dryer did.

Between the phone calls and the loss of sunlight as the time grew late, I gave up on being creative and launched YouTube in hopes of learning something or being inspired. Unfortunately, the YouTube videos all seemed doomed to suffer excessive lag and buffering, which made me twitchy, so I gave up on that idea as well.

NetFlix videos played just fine, so I finished the day watching Supernatural again. I should probably try to sleep early tonight before the Sears guy wakes me up with the rising sun.

Aloha!

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