July 27, 2008

I’m Gonna Change My Way of Living, and If That Ain’t Enough…

Well, they tell you not to make too many life changes right after you’ve had a seriously traumatic event in your life, and as usual, I’m not listening.  In one short week since I last talked with you, I have:

>Switched banks.  A whole new start, right?  Out with the old, in with the new.  Banking, that is.  Love the new one.  Hopefully when they write out checks to pay some of my bills to companies that haven’t caught up to the 21st Century enough to have automatic bill pay, this bank won’t bounce the same checks THEY wrote and THEY mailed, as happened twice in the same year with my old bank.  Ya know why they did that?  Beats me, but I think it almost certainly has something to do with outsourcing the work, where nobody is accountable.  Take that, George Bush.  Outsourcing Does Not Work if you want your business (or your country) (OR your war) to be run with any sense of responsibility whatsoever.  I’ve had enough and I’m not taking it anymore!  (Yay me!)  Old bank, gone.  New bank, huge enough that they have to hire people within their organization to do all the work, which means there’s more chance they MIGHT do it right, capice?

>Dropped my land line and am using my cell phone exclusively now, which I’ve been thinking about doing for quite a while anyhow, and I’m findng it curiously freeing because now I won’t have to go running to my house phone when I come home from wherever, to see if there are any messages.  Anybody calls me now, I’m going to know about it in real time. Somebody  call me so we can check that out.  Anybody?  Hello?

>Speaking of my cell phone, I managed to finally call Verizon for a new area code to match the area code I actually live in.  When I got my cell two years ago, attached to my daughter’s cell contract in the next state, there were no numbers available in my area so I used her area code, which has always kept me off-balance anyhow, and I don’t need any extra help with that, thank you very much.  Old phone, but new number.  And actually, it’s NOT my old phone.  I got a new one while I was at it, after putting that off for six months.  This one’s red, a happy color unless you’re a Democrat.  I hope to God I don’t have that backwards.

>Wore one of my late husband’s T-shirts without feeling guilty or morbid about it.  In fact, it felt quite comforting.  Not so much because it’s red and white striped, but probably because it’s big and soft and floppy.  Big and soft and floppy is good, right?  (Well…maybe not always…)

>Watched the Ellen Degeneras Show for the first time EVER, and I have to tell you, I haven’t laughed like that, which was out loud and totally delighted, in I don’t know how long.  She even had me dancing, even though I was alone in the house with my two cats, who cowered in the corner wondering what the hell was wrong with me.  Thank you, Ellen Degeneras, and I hope I spelled your name right.  If I didn’t, somebody will tell me fast enough.

>Managed to get my late husband’s insurance company (who generously offered to allow me to leave my insurance proceeds with them, let them manage it, and dribble it to me in monthly checks until the money ran out, wasn’t that lovely of them) to send it to me in one lump sum.  I gave them a list of enough reasons why I was perfectly able and more than willing to manage my own money.  About a dozen or so, to be sort of exact, all valid if a little goofily worded for maximum effect.  In fact, I let Hotclue write it. I got my check exactly one week later.  I had no idea until I opened the envelope that their sleazebag salesman had dropped in one day years ago when I wasn’t home and talked my husband into switching his policy so that the face value would begin to diminish after the first three years.  Which I’m absolutely sure my husband did not understand AT all.  No, I won’t mention their name, but I do seem to remember a picture of a huge rock jutting out of an ocean somewhere…Oh, but I digress.  Anyhow, I SO appreciate their concern for me in my dotage.  Even so, there’s nothing as exhilarating as winning a battle of wills.  I probably misspelled exhilarating just now, but I don’t think I’m dangling any participals.  Or is that participles?  Sigh…

>Last but not least, my one and only extravagance, because I’m becoming as tight as a witches…well, never mind, I’m trying to be nice here.  I bought a Garmin GPS.  And in addition to that, I paid for a third of it by cashing in credit card points, also for the first time ever.  (You have no idea what it took to get me to do that.)  So now, for the First Time EVER, when I get into my car to drive anywhere further than one mile away, I won’t get lost like I always did before.  Sometimes, I blush to disclose, less than a mile away.  Now I’ll always have that little voice to tell me, “Turn right at the next corner.  NO, NO, RIGHT, did you hear me, RIGHT!  NOT LEFT, you idiot!  RIGHT!”

>I haven’t changed my hair color.  But I am thinking about it. 

Ciao for now.  I may not be doing that well with Widowhood 101, but I am learning independence.  I’ll probably never be fit to live with again.

Beth, and Hotclue is right behind me, laughing.  I have no idea why.  Love you all, you know we do.  Come back and see us next week.  We’ll leave the front porch light on for ya.