I am annoyed.

There are so many things that are annoying me right now! My PG&E bill went up from Christmas. Way up. Our December bill was high (double!) and I chalked it up to Christmas lights. We were very cautious after Christmas about our energy usage - lowering the thermostats, only using our space heaters when absolutely necessary, turning off lights and powerstrips when not in use, wearing layers, etc, and still, our bill is even higher! Ugh! When I called their customer service line to see if there was anything we could do to reassess our usage or see if there is some kind of drain on our house or anything to further reduce our energy usage, the wait time was over an hour and a half! Hello! I have a family to feed, a sick child to care for, and much more important things to do than sit on hold for 90 minutes. . . grrrr.



We had cable installed today. Ugh! That was a fiasco in and of itself. We bought our first new tv - a decent-size LCD tv that was well-rated with Consumer Reports. We made adjustments in out budget to allow us to get cable in order to enjoy our new tv. The installer came within his alloted 2-hour window. That's good. . . ok. Once he assessed our situation, he told us he'd have to install a new cable. Ok, fine. Then, he peeks under the house and says there's no way he can run the cable under the house, that he'll just have to drill a hole through the exterior wall of the house straight into the living room. Uhhh, how about NO! I'm renting this house from my family. This yahoo was talking about drilling through a wood-panelled wall, that although I dislike, is not mine to be drilling through! After calling my aunt to confirm that I was going to tell this guy he was nuts, I told him no way. He'd just have to go under the house to figure it out or we'd cancel our order and take our business elsewhere. I guess his supervisor told him to quit being a wimp and figure it out, because he came back from his phone call to say he'd need J's help to get the wire through. GRRRRRR . . . all wired, cable worked, no big deal after all.



Now, after having cable for a few hours, we have a static-y picture! Not much better than the picture we had with our rabbit-ears! The technical support person on the phone was completely unhelpful with his "sending signals to the box" stuff. I'm thinking they hire a bunch of charlatan psychics over there. He scheduled a technician to come out to our house Friday afternoon but suggested that we take the box into their office and someone could do something on site. Well, longish story short, we drove our unhappy cable box to the office (just ten minutes from our house) and J got us a new box with an HDMI cable for free. When the cable company hands out $30 cables for free, they score a few points. And somehow (ssssshhhhh) we get more channels than we ordered. Hmmmmmm. . . .

And, so I can record my weirdest night ever. . .

Saturday night I wanted sushi for dinner. J, K, and brother S were all in agreeance that sushi was the thing to eat. So, I picked a local restaurant off of www.yelp.com. There were so many in our downtown area, that we just went with what was closest to the parking garage. We should have left when the head waitress started yelling at the couple in front of us, while waving her arms, no less : "HELLO!!! Two! You two! Over here! Two at the bar right here!" Not kidding. Not exaggerating. I should have dragged us all out of there at that moment, but my intense craving for sushi overrode my common sense. When it was finally our turn to be seated, she gave us the third degree in a very loud voice: "Are you next? Are you sure there was no one ahead of you??" At this point, after waiting 20 minutes, I'm beginning to take it personally. Now, we make our choices quickly and wait for our order to be taken. Little K is very quickly reaching her limit for being out in a restaurant and is getting antsy. I am losing my patience. Here's what puts me over the edge. Not only does she take the orders of the two couples that were seated AFTER us, but then, she begins to bus a table as all of us are looking over at her. It is only when J and I get up to leave with poor, melting-down K that this waitress comes over and asks to take our order. I told her I didn't need to wait that long for sushi and we left. S stayed with his friend A and ordered some rolls to go. It took ONE HOUR to get the rolls and leave. As J and I are walking back to the parking garage, totally floored at the incredibly poor service we just didn't receive, we stop in our favorite burrito place to grab a burrito to split and a baby burrito for our baby. While placing my order, the goober who ordered ahead of me interrupts me to confirm his order one more time. Now, in all fairness, the young woman taking the order did mess it up a bit, but interrupting me, or anyone, is rude. Goober's burrito is no more important than mine and he could have waited 30 seconds more for me to finish my order before jumping in to make sure his steak burrito had extra guac. Besides, there were many orders to be made ahead of ours, so he had plenty of time to double check his order.


Uggh. Not to mention, poor K woke up sick again this morning. We just finished a round of antibiotics for her ear infection from the last cold. I hope we don't go through this cycle again.