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Thanksgiving was faaaaaabulous. We went to Fred’s sister’s house and had all the usual stuff. Fred’s father and stepmother made the turkey, and it was really good – even more so last night when I had a turkey sandwich for dinner.
We – by which I mean “I” – were responsible for the sweet potato casserole. It’s pretty easy to make, and Wednesday morning I decided to put it together so we could just pop it in the oven before we left the house Thursday. I got the whole damn casserole put together with the topping sprinkled on top, and I thought “Huh. That doesn’t quite look right. Oh well.”, shrugged, covered the casserole, put it in the fridge, and began cleaning up.
Whereupon I realized that I’d forgotten to put the friggin’ pecans in the topping. I called Fred and said “Do you suppose I could just sprinkle the pecans across the top?”
“Well,” he said. “Why don’t you mix up a half-batch of the topping, put the pecans in that, and sprinkle it across the top.”
I was instantly enraged, way more pissed off than I should have been, given that the whole situation was MY OWN STUPID FAULT.
(Actually, it was the fault of the dishtowel which was hiding the bag of pecans. Stupid dishtowel.)
I got all clipped and pissed-off sounding with Fred.
“Well, what?” he said, himself annoyed. “What do you want me to say?”
“That it would be fine to just sprinkle the pecans across the top!” I said. Honestly – must I always spell EVERYTHING out?
“Then sprinkle the pecans across the top!”
“FINE.”
“OKAY.”
“Good-bye!” I said, and he said goodbye, and we hung up.
And then, fuming the entire time, I mixed up a half-batch of the topping, added the pecans and sprinkled them across the top.
Bastard.
It turned out pretty damn good, because really – you can’t have too much of a brown sugar and butter topping, can you?
The best part of Thanksgiving, though, was the apple tart Fred’s sister’s boyfriend – who is French – made. It wasn’t quite cooked in the middle, but that was A-OK fine with me, ’cause the outside crust was absolutely fucking fabulous. I wanted to divorce Fred on the spot and marry the crust, it was so amazing.
Those French sure do know how to cook.
* * *
Speaking of Fred’s sister’s boyfriend, he seems like a really nice guy. But – and I know I’ve mentioned this in the past – when I’m listening to someone with a very thick accent always makes me feel stupid, because I have a hard time understanding what they’re saying. Yesterday, though, even though I could only understand about every third word he was saying, I still got the gist of what he was saying.
Kind of like Shakespeare, I guess – I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what any single line in a Shakespeare play means, but I pretty much know what’s happening in the course of that scene.
(My 11th grade English teacher was not impressed by my “I have no idea what they’re saying, but I know what’s going on!” argument, by the way.)
* * *
I was up until almost 2:00 this morning. This happened because around 10:30, after I’d folded a load of clothes and put them away, I decided to come downstairs and check my email one last time before I went to sleep. Long story short, I added an email address to my robynand3rson.com domain, and checked it a few times to make sure it was working. It seemed to be working okay, so I sent one last test email, and upon checking that email account I started getting an error message. And then I realized my other robynand3rson.com email – the one I use for the giveaway page – was coming back with the same fucking error.
After fiddling around with several different things – more on that in a moment – I still couldn’t access either of my robynand3rson.com emails. Which is when I remembered that when I’d had any domain-type problems in the past, all I did was put a help desk ticket in and the helpful support people fixed it, and all was good. So I went to the Ventures Online page, whereupon I was reminded that Ventures was bought out by some company called Data393. When I clicked on the “support” link on the Data393 page, it said that unless I’d gotten a Data393 password, to use the Ventures Online support page for the time being.
So I followed the link back to the Ventures Online support page, clicked on the “Put a help desk ticket in” link, and got an error. No matter how many times I clicked that fucking link, I always got an error.
I hate it when that happens.
Well, no problem, right? I’ll just send them an email! Except… apparently you can’t fucking do that. Again, no problem – I’ll fill out the “emergency pager” form! Except… you can’t do that if you don’t have a help desk ticket. Okay, fine! I’ll fill out the feedback form to alert them that their help desk link is fucked, right? Except… I filled out the feedback form, clicked submit, and GOT A GODDAMN ERROR.
By this time it was midnight and I was swearing up a storm (and Miz Poo was laying on her pillow trying to decide whether she should be alarmed) and I was pissed beyond words.
I went back to the Data393 page, thinking that I’d just use THEIR support page, only guess what? You can’t use it unless you have a password. And had they sent me a password? Why, no. OF COURSE NOT.
Finally, I ended up on the Data393 “contact” page and though there was no email address for the support team – OF COURSE – there were email addresses for the sales, abuse, and careers (?) departments. I ended up emailing the sales department, detailing the problems I was having, and calling their support page “spectacularly unhelpful.”
I stomped upstairs around 12:30, turned the light off, and instead of going to sleep, tossed and turning, fuming all the while. My main concern was that I had updated the giveaway page yesterday, and now who the hell knew when I was going to be able to access that email? Also, I had planned to start taking names and addresses for Christmas cards today, and who knew when I would be able to access THAT email? After thinking about it for a little while, I got up again, came downstairs, logged into my hiwaay.net account, and created two more email addresses.
Yes, I’m supposed to be cancelling my hiwaay.net account at the end of this month, but I guess I’ll just friggin’ wait ’til the end of December instead.
Around 1:30 I went back upstairs and read for a little while before turning the light off. I finally fell asleep, but what do you suppose I dreamed about all night long?
That’s right, spectacularly unhelpful support pages.
This morning I discovered that Data393 had emailed FRED a password, because the billing is under his name, and after fucking all, why would I need to access the stupid support page? I’m only the fucking OWNER of the domain. So I put in a help ticket, got a quick response (“We’re checking into it”) and have heard nothing else in the past three hours.
If I could just hunt down, say, the head of Data393 and punch him or her in the face several times, I’m sure I’d feel WAY better.
* * *
Miz Poo has been driving me absolutely fucking nuts lately. She hops up on my desk and sits between me and the monitor. No, she doesn’t want to lay down. No, she doesn’t want to go over on her pillow. No, she doesn’t want her belly rubbed. She just wants to sit there, in the way, and half-doze while I lean around her to see the screen. ARGH!
* * *
I swear to you, he was staring all wide-eyed and panicked-looking at absolutely nothing. Maybe there was a ghost taunting him…
* * *
Time to let me know you want a holiday card! (And yes, of course I’m more than happy to send cards to other countries!) Go here, fill out the form, and click on the button. That’s it. Simple, eh? I’m taking names and addresses until December 20th this year, just because I can.
If you’d like to send me a card as well (not required, but always appreciated), send it to: Robyn Anderson, PO Box 565, Madison, AL 35758 USA.
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