Monday, March 21, 2011

This morning the first thing I yelled was, “Just put your tail on!” (cause that’s normal) My daughter spends her days since Halloween in a black, velvety unitard she calls her ‘cat suit.’ The dog ate her cat ears, but Grandma was nice enough to put the tail on a piece of elastic so she can wear it like a belt. … and we do… every … day…

After this I was told that a cat can not marry a tiger! I continued to dig through the stuffed animals looking for a male cat for my female cat (daughter) to marry. I held up Hello Kitty. What was I thinking? Tossed back into the pile, I continued searching… I held up the stuffed Beaver, and she replied (and I kid you not!) “Come on mom.” Like Deeerrrrrrr…

I don’t know who she picked to marry, but a few minutes later she came to me in the office with something behind her back singing Happy Birthday. She then presented me with flowers (dirty, nasty ones she pulled from behind the trash in the barn) then in the other hand, she handed me a little material bag she has with something inside. She showed me, her stuffed kitty, Colors. This was sweet… then she wanted them back and told me she needed to “put the cat back in the bag.” I snickered at this.

That was the end of my pleasant day. Ellie dressed and went out back to play at 8am, refusing to come back inside to leave for Grandma’s house. I Dragged her back inside, persuading her with empty threats,. She took her payload of puppies to Grandma’s. My dear sweet husband stopped and got me a chocolate muffin. It was stale, but the thought was great. Thanks honey.

At 10:15 I lost my internet connection. I powered down the work PC. Unplugged. Waited 10 seconds. Plugged it all back in. Rebooted… Nothing. I did it one more time. Still nothing. Next I messed with some videos on my other PC for about a half hour. Tried to Reboot work, and still got nothing. Off to the farm… still no connection. Shower! Still no connection! I finally called the Help Desk. They told me (with an understanding smile) that someone would get back to me with in 24 hours. YAY… (Sarcasm)

Afraid to leave because they might call I did the dishes, cleaned the cat box out, rebooted… (you know.. Nothing!!) made some popcorn, caught up with the Kardashians, rebooted…nothing. Cleaned off the one side of my desk, filed some paper work… rebooted… Nothing.

By this time, I decided to call the Help Desk again and offer to call Time Warner myself. They told me I could not for reason bla, bla, bla, but someone would call me back… sit tight. I then called my boss who told me to keep him posted and let him know when I think things should be escalated. Well darling, if you think you’re going to tell me to make up this time, then it needs to be escalated now.

I picked up my kid, and as I returned home Brett tells me he thinks they just tried to call. I ran for the phone and it was a local number. A friend is adopting a puppy and put me down as a reference. After her Droid disconnected me twice and a nice round of phone tag I finally told her they were excellent candidates. Immediately after we hung up, the Help Desk called! YAY

That feeling didn’t last…

Did you reboot? Are you Kidding me???? Movin’ on! I told him what was happening, and the first thing he did was tell me the Linksys has to go. UHC no longer will allow us to share their internet connection. Are you Kidding me ??? ? Honestly it was hard to pay attention after that. I know I had no service at that moment, but I almost threw up as he walked me through disconnecting my lifeline to the outside world. What are we going to do? If he gets the internet connection back, how will we ever check our mail? How will we pay our bills? What internet provider will we get? When will it get hooked up? I felt myself sinking into a World Wide Webless Hell!

Try to Concentrate Michelle!!

He hooked me up with out the router, and I still had nothing. We Pinged. We Yahoo’d. We Pinged and checked IP Addresses again. He put me on hold as he called Time Warner for a second time. Still nothing. One more Ping to see the Lease date… I had a connection for a full 20 seconds on that ping. We pinged so many times I felt like I had bored the Red October.

“Your Modem I think is shot,” he told me. “I know you’ve only had it since December of last year,” he goes on to say. “In this house?” I asked like an idiot. “This modem has been here at least 4 years, maybe more.” he was shocked by that and thought I was lucky it had lasted that long.

Bottom line... No internet, no work, no service AT ALL. A service tech will be here tomorrow. I called my boss and let him know and he has to check to see how much of this *$%#&@ time I have to make up once we have service again.

Amidst all this going down, I had text my husband and told him to get on Time Warner and Verizon on his phone and get me some WiFi info! Luckily I had cleaned my desk earlier and had a Time Warner bill handy. They were cake to call and talk to. Told me exactly what I needed to know. Verizon - whole other story! I spent a half hour staring at my cell phone trying to find a phone number for them so that I could talk to a real person. Still not getting the ’contact us’ button to work, my husband came in with his Droid for me to surf the internet with. Handing it to me almost in tears, we found the number which ironically enough is 1-800-… wait for it… VERIZON. $&*#^^*%@#$#!!!! I burst out a laugh when I saw that… but it was more of a nervous break down type sound.

The woman at Verizon was nice as she fed her face and talked me though the processes. Wi Fi package ordered and will be here by Thursday. My bill will only increase $3.00 a month, because she ’had a coupon’

Now we don’t know what to do. Sure we have internet on the phones, but not quite the same. There’s no surfing. No shopping on line. No Youtube. No real connection to the outside world. I have my videos form Sunday’s horse show all ready to upload to you tube, and I can’t. I feel like I can’t do anything!

Brett’s read a magazine. I am actually thinking about reading a book. But I’m having some kind of withdrawal… I feel empty, alone, cut off, uncivilized… like I’m running around without my tail.

I guess you’re just never fully dressed without your tail.

[It's now Thursday night, I have my new modem, every things hooked up, but I still have no internet.  There's a problem with the line and Verizon hopes to have it fixed in 24-48 hours...  Don't make me regret this decision Verizon. In the mean time??  Stealing from work for just a few more hours... they'll understand]