The adventures of moi
Apr. 6th, 2007 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonIt's been a week of small and petty challenges.
It started off last Friday when I began a special two week eating program to detox from sugar. I am, and I remain, cranky. I look forward to eating cereal again with a ferocity that's not to be believed. That was the same day my internet connectivity at home went away. It's still not back. I hope to have that problem solved by tomorrow afternoon, as I'm having a cable modem installed. For $10 less than the DSL was costing me. Even after the introductory offer is over, so that's a small victory. But if you don't hear from me over the weekend, you'll know what happened.
Oh, and yahoo has been eating my mail. So if you sent me something and I ignored you, I may not actually have gotten it.
That same Friday evening I got a phone call from my Visa Security and Fraud folks trying to confirm some purchases. Everything was cool until they got to the $500 charge at a Target in San Diego a few days before. Not made by me. I still had the card in my possession, so she explained a scam that's going around. Sales people, et al., she said, sell Visa numbers to scammers who make fake cards with fake IDs to go with them, then sell them on the black market. The sales clerk at Target was alert, apparently, and refused the charge, but the Security person assured me I wouldn't be libel for the charge in any case. It did mean I had to destroy the card and get a new one. This was the same account that was compromised in the Choicepoint hacking scandal a few years back. At the time, my instinct was to close the account and get a new one, but my bank assured me "it was highly unlikely" my account number would be compromised. Uh huh. Should have trusted my instincts on this one, although the Security person last Friday said it was "highly unlikely" that was how my number got out there. Uh huh. I think perhaps my bank/Visa didn't want to go to the expense of closing accounts and opening new ones.
When we mentioned this the next day to our neighbors across the street, they'd had the same scam run on them. Also in San Diego—which does make me wonder about that hotbed of crime and vice to the south. Get this: a guy went into a bank, slapped down his fake Visa and said he'd like $500 in cash. The bank duly forked it over and he left. Apparently, he thought it was so easy he went back a little while later to the exact same branch and tried it again. That teller got suspicious this time and went to talk to the manager. The guy took off.
So my new Visa arrives last night. It looked like the envelope had been tampered with. That happens frequently with packages and interesting-looking mail in my neighborhood. I wonder if somewhere down the line I'll get another call from Visa Security and Fraud?
Then Amazon said my mother's birthday present wouldn't get to me until two days after her birthday, but it arrived last night, two days early. Which was a good thing. Except one of the books was not what Mom wanted. Oh well.
More doctor's visits for more petty annoyances. Nothing too bad, so I'm grateful. And I'm still alive, so I'm grateful. I remind myself, "This is what the living do." Which is also the name of one of my more favoritest poems of all time (and a wonderful book, too). You can read the title poem here, if you aren't poetry-averse:
http://www.blueflowerarts.com/mhowe.html
I am living. I am grateful. The petty sh*t just lets me know I'm still part of life—as much, maybe more so on some days—then the passion and the glory. And there are good and wonderful poems now and then to make me see the world fresh and be even more grateful to be amongst the living.
Random quote of the day:
"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the yard and shot it."
—Truman Capote
Thankfully, I haven't felt that way about most of mine. But there have been one or two...
It started off last Friday when I began a special two week eating program to detox from sugar. I am, and I remain, cranky. I look forward to eating cereal again with a ferocity that's not to be believed. That was the same day my internet connectivity at home went away. It's still not back. I hope to have that problem solved by tomorrow afternoon, as I'm having a cable modem installed. For $10 less than the DSL was costing me. Even after the introductory offer is over, so that's a small victory. But if you don't hear from me over the weekend, you'll know what happened.
Oh, and yahoo has been eating my mail. So if you sent me something and I ignored you, I may not actually have gotten it.
That same Friday evening I got a phone call from my Visa Security and Fraud folks trying to confirm some purchases. Everything was cool until they got to the $500 charge at a Target in San Diego a few days before. Not made by me. I still had the card in my possession, so she explained a scam that's going around. Sales people, et al., she said, sell Visa numbers to scammers who make fake cards with fake IDs to go with them, then sell them on the black market. The sales clerk at Target was alert, apparently, and refused the charge, but the Security person assured me I wouldn't be libel for the charge in any case. It did mean I had to destroy the card and get a new one. This was the same account that was compromised in the Choicepoint hacking scandal a few years back. At the time, my instinct was to close the account and get a new one, but my bank assured me "it was highly unlikely" my account number would be compromised. Uh huh. Should have trusted my instincts on this one, although the Security person last Friday said it was "highly unlikely" that was how my number got out there. Uh huh. I think perhaps my bank/Visa didn't want to go to the expense of closing accounts and opening new ones.
When we mentioned this the next day to our neighbors across the street, they'd had the same scam run on them. Also in San Diego—which does make me wonder about that hotbed of crime and vice to the south. Get this: a guy went into a bank, slapped down his fake Visa and said he'd like $500 in cash. The bank duly forked it over and he left. Apparently, he thought it was so easy he went back a little while later to the exact same branch and tried it again. That teller got suspicious this time and went to talk to the manager. The guy took off.
So my new Visa arrives last night. It looked like the envelope had been tampered with. That happens frequently with packages and interesting-looking mail in my neighborhood. I wonder if somewhere down the line I'll get another call from Visa Security and Fraud?
Then Amazon said my mother's birthday present wouldn't get to me until two days after her birthday, but it arrived last night, two days early. Which was a good thing. Except one of the books was not what Mom wanted. Oh well.
More doctor's visits for more petty annoyances. Nothing too bad, so I'm grateful. And I'm still alive, so I'm grateful. I remind myself, "This is what the living do." Which is also the name of one of my more favoritest poems of all time (and a wonderful book, too). You can read the title poem here, if you aren't poetry-averse:
http://www.blueflowerarts.com/mhowe.html
I am living. I am grateful. The petty sh*t just lets me know I'm still part of life—as much, maybe more so on some days—then the passion and the glory. And there are good and wonderful poems now and then to make me see the world fresh and be even more grateful to be amongst the living.
Random quote of the day:
"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the yard and shot it."
—Truman Capote
Thankfully, I haven't felt that way about most of mine. But there have been one or two...
no subject
Date: 2007-04-07 01:45 am (UTC)I will have to do a sugar detox soon. I am not looking forward to it. ::sympathizes with you::
no subject
Date: 2007-04-07 06:46 pm (UTC)the horror! the horror! ;-)
no subject
Date: 2007-04-07 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-07 11:22 pm (UTC)