Category Archive for bonus material

Verizon: update.

So, Verizon, beloved trusty vendor, with your fab customer support, (aHEM, that’s sarcasm, see: here), when I wrote for the new set-top box, and I asked “so EVERYTHING I need is in the box?”

‘member?

And member how you were all “MMM hmm, yup, it’s all in the box and it’s super easy.”

And I was dubious, having dealt with you before and you took that opportunity to tell me a parable about how everything in the world could seem complicated but in verizon-land, life is great, the sun shines all day and night, and high-speed everything sails through the air straight into happy customers’ hearts?

Remember???

Well, I’m just saying, by EVERYthing in the box, I meant INCLUDING the “additional coaxial cable” page one of your instructions tipped me off to needing.

Looking forward to learning what else is not included.

Thanksluvyabye.

Harumph.

When I get all steamed up

Tea pots. Tea kettles.

Useful little gadgets, right? Especially when one’s sick and sniffley.

[Photo “teapot” on Flickr by Xassa]

In the move, I could have sworn I packed (and boxed and reboxed) at least 3 of them. Yah, in the great combining households after 25, we have doubles and triples of everrrything.

And yet?

Can’t find a one. Tore up the basement and the closets, untaping all those boxes so neatly labeled “give away.” Sneezing and whispering, I would have even settled for one of the many things I angrily threw in tubs, in my “get this out of here! I do not want any of these things! Next crystal bowl or vase is getting guillotined. Don’t try me? You wanna battle candlestick???? Throw them away NOW!” phase (sometimes I channel my mother. 🙂 Hi mom! This one’s for you!)

Still none. So, I’m at the mall, remember oh yah, Macy’s, they have housewares… teapots. Trot along between the ghost-town that was formerly known as major department store, to the one aisle of housewares in the sea of jampacked juniors “fashions” largely consisting of purple beaded tops and XXL “housecoats” always popular with the juniors… and voila, a not bad, pretty cute actually “martha stewart essentials” turquoise teapot. Price? $80.

Let me say that again. Eight TEE. Doll ARS. seriously.

I blinked. Further investigation revealed … it was on sale. For $63. For a tea pot!?

Had I been living in a cave? Was I the George Bush Sr. of my generation and in the years since I registered (for all those agljagjklagjlk crystal bowls), this is now what kitchen stuff cost? I wandered on and squashed, shamed in a corner with the other rif-raff appliances (“low-end mixers, kept farrr away from their kitchenaid superiors; “regular” coffeemakers that didn’t even make cappucino (as IF!), I found another teapot. $59.

I took the box down to examine – did these teapots have magical properties? come with boyfriends? insta-flu remedies? get outta work free cards? Nope. I just couldn’t do it.

Three hours later at a store whose name may have the initials B, B, and B (and is NOT buy buy baby), we found our teapot. a “curling stone” after the canadian sport, though I prefer to call it a curling iron. It’s white and doesn’t quite whistle right and the handle gets a little hot to the touch. But hey for $25, what do you want?

It was the tea kettle steal of the century apparently.

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Walls

No time to write? Try 60 second doses.

Okay, so usually I’ve been told, have benefitted from, and would recommend 60 MINUTE doses (or at least 10 minutes). Still, there’s something to even shorter spurts for kicking up ideas even when you’re feeling none.

And the lovely site, the One-Minute Writer, makes it easy, complete with a timer to track the seconds for you.

I tried this one Today’s Writing Prompt: Walls but the whole site is wonderful. And speaking of wonderful, so is the WordPress plug-in scrippets

Walls

[scrippet]

INT. LIVING ROOM, SUBURBAN HOME, NIGHT

WASHWORDS IS HOLDING A RED GLASS BOX.

WASHWORDS
This box holds my lovely heart.

ME
The box is lovely. It is red and glass and catches the light. It is safe.

WASHWORDS
But the heart is inside. Inside is the rich, warm, fleshy love.

ME
Careful. You have to be careful. You’ll break it without the box

WASHWORDS
It’s only the box that could break. It’s the box that is made of glass,threatening shards of red and glass that prickle and stab that heart.

ME
Not if you don’t move it. Ever. Never ever open or adjust it.

WASHWORDS
If you don’t move it, it cannot breathe and it will die.

ME
Still. Safe.

WASHWORDS
And dead.

[/scrippet]

What walls do I want to knock down?

The jagged glass ones that seduce and appeal and dazzle and, on occasion, choke my heart.

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