Saturday-10:45am

Well, good morning!

Long post with a lot of pictures.  

Grab some coffee or tea--LOL!

Not sure when the next post will be.

Not that it looks like this today.  

It's clouded over and looks like more rain.

Miss Karma and I are on total R&R for the weekend.  Life has been busy and filled with far too much frustration and incompetence.  Not the packing crew, though.  Those two ladies were really nice and efficient.  They were here Monday from 1-5pm.  When they left there were 32 boxes piled in the pantry...

...the hallway (even on Karma's cat box)...

...and my bedroom.

They had boxes ready for Tuesday...

...and left all their tapes and such, too.

The few boxes Leah and I had packed were under the folding table (5).

Dagan came after work and hauled all those 37 boxes to the garage.  (And it was hot!) 

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Tuesday morning the maintenance man and a girl from the office I've never seen before came by for their inspection to see if there was anything needs fixing before new people move in.  (No one has been shown the apartment yet.)  I had gotten a form in the mail to sign so that they wouldn't automatically withdraw my rent from my bank account in August--so I asked the girl if she would take it back with her (because I am in terrible shape right now).  I also explained I had a couple post-it notes attached--the forwarding address and then telling them my daughter-in-law was going to do the walk through with them and was hiring a carpet cleaning company.  She agreed to take it to the office for me.  The "inspection" lasted five minutes.  (The maintenance man already was here twice for the AC, fixed the kitchen sink--and he knows me.)  

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Then the packing crew came back 1-5pm on Tuesday and they finished everything they could pack!!  TaDa!!  Dagan came over after work and hauled out all of those boxes--about as many trip-wise, but they were larger ones.  Leah and Ian arrived with dinner from Dairy Queen...and Dilly Bars!  Then Dagan and Leah took things off the walls until Ian needed to go home to sleep.  Leah stayed and finished up.

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Wednesday Linda came by in the morning to pick up all the boxes and paraphernalia that weren't used.  

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Note: Linda and a packer will be here around 7:30am on moving day (before the moving company arrives about 8am) to pack up the last of my stuff I needed to keep out for the week.  Linda said she will supervise the movers on both ends of the move...and Leah will be both places, too.  Dagan, Ian, Karma, and I should be leaving or already gone to the new place by the time the movers get here.  Dagan will be watching Ian at home and bringing Leah and I lunches.  :)  That's the plan, I believe.

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 Meanwhile, still not sleeping well...just a few hours at a time.

Too many sunrises--LOL!

And it has been one thing after the next with idiots incompetent people for almost two weeks. 

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*sigh*

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1. Sherre

She gave me the wrong zip code.  I have been giving the new address to federal, state, and county, etc, all month...wrong zip code.  I ordered return address labels...wrong zip code.  I didn't realize this until I went to change my address on a couple of websites online.  I would type in 58103 and it would automatically change it to 58104.  So I went on to the USPS official website and searched for the zip code for the address she gave me--sure enough!  58104-8982 is the official zip code.  Sorry to everyone I gave the wrong zip code.  BUT--now I am wondering--is the rest of the address correct?!?  We are also wondering--will Sherre show up at the scheduled time?  Will she give me the correct keys and garage door opener?  Tune in...

2. CableOne

I thought I was all set up for internet and land line and was told I would be able to keep my old telephone number.  Then I start getting calls from CableOne because they cannot "capture" the old number.  First I was told I had to get my old company (Eventis) to put the new address in their computer and pretend I was going to keep them (was told this by more than one person)--which made no sense because Eventis is not even available in the brand new apartment and why I am dealing with CableOne in the first place! I tell them I will call Eventis and just tell them the truth.  I do.  And I get a sweet girl who understood and said she would flag my account so that they would manually put it through and CableOne wouldn't get an error or rejection.  All CableOne had to do was run it through again.  Sounds simple, right?

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Well, first they put in the wrong address--new one instead of old--so that my account came up as disconnected.  Of course, the fact that I haven't even lived there yet or had any phone ever connected seemed to confuse several of them.  (Oh and BTW, with every single person I talked to I always had to start from scratch every time and give them all my information and all the order information--every detail--every time.)

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Then at one point during their confusion-dilemma about a week ago this one guy asked for a number where I could be reached so that the service person could call to make sure I was home when they came to connect my internet and phone.  (How could one do that if they are getting a phone installed and didn't have a cell phone?)  I gave him my cell phone number.  Big mistake.  He entered that into the system as the land line number they were trying to capture--and it became a second account number!!

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Wednesday I was on the phone for two straight hours with three different people waiting for them to straighten out the mess they had created...just to keep my old number.  I was on hold for 23 minutes for the second guy when I was suddenly waiting for the "next available representative"--what the hell!??  Then you have to explain everything from scratch again to the next incompetent person like they have never heard of me or have anything on their computer...birth date, SS number, what are you ordering?  I almost cried.  

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And they all kept telling me that they might have to give me a different number temporarily in order for me to have a land line in July.  Every day that went by they kept moving my installation date farther off.  My appointment had been bumped from the 29th to the 30th to the 31st and they still hadn't figured out what they had done and couldn't fix it.  The third lady that day...I thought she maybe understood.  I had been explaining or on hold for two hours...she finally came back on and said they were having trouble getting through to the automated verification number (really makes you feel confident in their services when their own stuff isn't working) and she would call me back when she got through.  But if I was to the point of the verification with the robot again maybe there was hope.  (Last time I was asked to confirm my cell phone number as the number for my new land line--wrong!) 

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Never heard from her.

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So Wednesday night I went over to McFamily's and FINALLY got to see their new deck and visit a little while.  Leah made dinner.  She cut my hair for me.  We visited a little, I got to cuddle with Ian a bit, but I was so exhausted I didn't stay long.  Leah sent me home with meals to nuke and a giant cupcake that was delicious!

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Thursday morning.

Karma, unaware of what the morning held for her, was innocently watching the swallows.  (She will miss them.)

It was the day of the dreaded vet visit.

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I do love my new "helpers".

This crate collapses...

....and the cart...

...completely folds down, wheels and all!  And I have hauled out some pretty heavy stuff with these.

They take up so much less room.  I bought them on Amazon--here and here if you're interested.  (Right now the lime green crate is cheaper than the blue one.)

Anyways, I wheeled out Karma's carrier on the cart and we folded the cart up and stuck it in the trunk.  Nice!  

Karma did better than we expected.  (We kind of figured because she was already stressed out in general the vet's was less of a shock.)  She was terrified but didn't struggle to get away or fight or go feral (which I'd only expect her to more likely do if I wasn't there).  They took the top half off the carrier so she could stay inside and put this blanket over her that had calming spray on it.  Karma was panting, drooling, trembling all over, and growling...as the one girl held her front shoulders down and I petted Karma and talked to her while the vet did her examination.  Her paw pads and ears were bright red.  Her nose was wet half-way up her face and she even broke out in a bumpy red rash on the skin around the inside of her eyes.  Absolutely terrified.  She obviously remembered being in the hospital.  But she was a good girl.

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Karma checked out okay.  She's lost 3 1/2 pounds from stress these last couple months, though.  They would like to clean her teeth, but the trauma on her wouldn't be worth it...and I can't afford it, regardless.  I did buy some of the calming spray. 

Such a small bottle for $31.00.

This was Karma after being home a couple hours.  Still jumpy, but so relieved to be home.

I'm not so sure this calming spray is going to work.  I wasn't sure it had any effect on her at the clinic, that's for sure.  But I was willing to try anything, right?  I sprayed it in her carrier and on her chair, ottoman, and favorite cat bed on the chair.  Karma has not gone up there since I sprayed it.  I'm afraid she might associate the scent with the vet's.  ??  They had suggested I spray it a couple places at home and then spray over at the new place...but I am not convinced that wouldn't make matters worse if she associates the smell with being terrified at the vet's.  ??

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Okay--back to the list of incompetents.  

We were discussing CableOne.

After I got back from the vets I had decided to just cancel the land line altogether and only get the internet as soon as possible.  Only twenty minutes and two people later--done!  Supposed to get internet hooked up later on the 30th.  And they STILL had two accounts for me and all my information under my cell phone number--which turned out fortuitous since I was canceling my land line--LOL!  I decided that, since it won't be too long before Midcontinent will be in the area of my new place and that is who McFamily uses and has had no issues...I will switch over to them and get a landline with a new number at that time.  They are cheaper than CableOne, too.  Oh and Dagan doesn't need to use the land line for months since his next pacemaker check is his annual in-person checkup down in Minneapolis.  I'll have a land line within six months so no problem.  Old school, you know.  :)  

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But now I have to call around to everybody or email to make sure people have the right zip code and my cell phone number. 

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*sigh*

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Last, but not least...

3. West Winds (where I live now)

After the ordeal with the vet...later that afternoon I see a paper shoved into my door from the office.  It's a notice to me that they have tried to contact me about a checkout appointment and have not been able to get a hold of me.  (I was home when they shoved it in my door, for goodness sakes!)  They scheduled a check out date for me, have also "taken the liberty" to schedule a carpet cleaning after I vacate to be taken out of my deposit, and they need a forwarding address (besides all the keys and such).

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Remember the girl I gave the form to...with the forwarding address and the info on carpet cleaning, etc?  So I call the office--and just so happen to get the very girl I gave the form to.  She didn't seem to remember me telling her about the post it notes but said she had given the form to this other girl.  She insisted that this was just a form letter.  Told me that they had not hired a carpet cleaner.  I was upset that they claimed they had tried to contact me...and did they get my form for the bank so they don't charge me rent for August and do they have my forwarding address?  (Which I now know isn't actually totally correct.)  Told her Leah would be calling them to arrange a walk-through time and had already hired a carpet cleaning company.  She must have told me half a dozen times that it was just a form letter and they had not hired a carpet cleaner--and I should call back on Monday about the form and forwarding address.

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Leah called them.  I warned her I didn't trust them.  Sure enough--they had hired another carpet cleaning company!  The letter was not a form letter.  Therefore, they were actually claiming they had tried to contact me.  They did say they didn't have my forwarding address.  So now I have to call Monday, for sure, to see if they got the bank form letter, etc.  We probably have a lot of new people in the office again (lots of turn over in there, too) who do not know that I am housebound so you cannot lie to me and tell me that you have been trying to reach me.  Anyways, Leah said they told her they would cancel their carpet cleaner and she has an appointment with them for check out after Caroline cleans and the carpet is cleaned.  I will follow up on Monday...and double check they canceled the carpet cleaner.

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Well, no matter how much pain I am in--I learned I shouldn't trust anybody to do anything for me.  Not even walk a piece of paper down to the office where they work.  Good customer service--competent employees in any public positions of any kind, for that matter--seems to quite truly be a lost art.  You betcha that all this going on has added to me not being able to sleep, that's for sure.

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We've had a lot of rain off and on lately.

Often at night.

I am just praying that it doesn't rain...

...during the moving process Monday and Tuesday.

Time will tell.

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I went out to the garage to see where all these boxes have gone...

...and because I wanted to grab some pics for you, too.

Had this idea come to me a couple days ago...

...to have the movers put everything I marked den--anything the packers marked for the art or craft bookcases--anything that doesn't say kitchen, living room, bedroom, or bathroom--left all together in the new garage.  

Maybe this is the mysterious reason I got a double garage at the new place, right?  The studio is going to be the last room we are going to put together, anyways, and art & craft stuff is probably at least half of those boxes!  We will be able to sort through things more easily for getting the rest of the apartment together.  There will be less chaos...less stacks of boxes about, you know?  And that is good for Miss Karma, too.  I noticed that the more boxes stacked everywhere and the more strangers about...the more she barfed.  Nice for me, too, of course.  Having less clutter sooner is always good.

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I can roll in a box or two at a time.  Winter hopefully won't be here for a while yet--LOL!  And I think Leah's coming over to help me organize the kitchen--which is the other big box source.  ;)  I love the idea.  I hope they can keep all the boxes marked for the garage together and then all the art & craft boxes together out there.  If a couple stray boxes come in--no problem.  Better than a roomful.  :)

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I did a final post-packing-crew video yesterday.  My place is like a skeleton now.  All the meat is gone from the bones.  Every bookcase, dresser, cupboard, and closet is empty.  Only the things that are sitting out that I've been using this last week and a suitcase and some stuff to be moved over the night after we get the keys.  Just R&R till Monday--ahhh!!  To Karma, at her level, it looks closer to her same world and that's less stressful for her.  It may look pretty much the same to you all, too, but to me it looks so empty.  

I am not sure when I'll be posting again.  But you know I will have pictures of the new place!!  You know I am overjoyed to be going to the new apartment and will be taking it easy and slow after the move.  I am hoping for good weather, nothing broken, a fast move, and no more dealing with repetitive issues due to incompetent folk.  Most of all, hoping Karma doesn't barf at the new place and that she will love it, too.  ;)

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I know it doesn't sound like it, but the physical move itself is going swimmingly and I am feeling basically so very positive and excited about the move.  It's just been endless detail-frustration with a string of people who I am amazed can keep a job.  But that is all getting squared away shortly.  I know everything is going to work out and this will fade away to an annoying memory quickly.  I know this move must seem to be taking forever.  Yup--seems that way to me, too--ROFL! 

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North Sky here we come!  :) 

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Have a peaceful, problem-free weekend.  :):)

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"Keep inviolate an area of light and peace within you."

Corazon Aquino