Adding more stress to my bad week

Last night, after all day of rain, my phone was disconnected. It's a mystery how the phone trouble always seem to occur during rain. First there were some heavy static, then eventually both landlines went dead by closing time. I called Verizon, and the operator on the other line insisted that I unhook the cordless phone and wait 5 minutes to see if the dial tone comes back. Otherwise he won't forward the calls that I cannot receive. The second line is mainly used for credit card processing, thus no phone was connected. Both lines were equally dead. This wonderful phone company always give me such a hard time! So I unhook everything, wait for 5 minutes, and called them back. Not a sound from either of the lines. Somehow, my line upstairs at least remains entact. If I also lose internet connection, I'd be truly dead. He said technician will be over today. And no one shows up all afternoon. I call them back late afternoon and asked the status. This time they tell me that there was a major cable failure in the area that affected many customers. "But didn't you have some major repair recently?" I asked. My line was out for almost a week a few months ago. Then she made up a story (or perhaps instructed to do so from management) that because of some construction, someone accidentally cut their cable. That is so believable, for this happened around 10 o'clock in the rain. Anyway, she says the line will be back by 8pm monday. This truly proved to be the week I should've taken off. Hopefully just a few days in paradise next week will ease my stress.



At least I had my laugh at this picture Heidi found on flickr with a subject "our old friend." Yes, it's our old friend Benjamin in his pirate attire, which I witnessed last week - he was riding in the back of a pedi-cab that was dressed like a pirate ship with cardboard. He was in the middle of a film shoot- there was a cameraman on anther pedi-cab. Then another girl followed on yet another pedi-cab with a stuffed chicken affixed in front. They passed in front of SOY twice that afternoon, each time I wished I had a camera. But here it is, at least in his costume.
on march 27, 2009 @ 09:20 pm [link]

friggin fairy


It's like I spoke too soon about the arrival of spring. We're still having some hat weather days. It's been a very stressful week and I'm mentally worn out. Mark sent me this Friggin Fairy and surely it made me smile. I also decided to take an impulse spring break and booked a flight to St. Martin. So be aware, we'll be closed next week from Monday through Thursday. "World Water Week" is here again, and we are helping Unicef raise money for Tap Project. Have a glass of delicious NYC tap water and donate a dollar! I believe good karma will come back to me.
on march 26, 2009 @ 06:18 pm [link]

hello sunshine

It's the first day of spring, and it was chilly morning with snowflakes dancing here and there. I would've thought they were cherry petals if I were in Japan. But this is New York. We have snow in April. Then someone told me once, "oh, I remember when it snowed in May..!" I remember chilly Memorial day like today. So, days are getting longer (finally we have longer daylight than dark night after today until autumn equinox) but brief warm days are still a tease. Yet sun feels much brighter lately- indeed, the sun just came out of clouds and now it really feels like the first day of spring.
on march 20, 2009 @ 02:28 pm [link]

Happy St. Patty's Day

Tal walked in for his daily fix of ginger lemonade. "Oh, you painted the wall green for St. Patty's day!" "Of course!" And unintentionally I was also wearing my green t-shirt. Already since this weekend, the city seems to have been taken over by drunken Irish people. Or maybe they're just kids gone wild for spring break. Weather is beatiful and mild- let's savor ever so brief spring time in New York. This morning at my accountant's office, I got a great news for a nice fat refund. I worked hard all year, and surely deserve this 'bonus.' Looking forward to running under cherry blossoms again in the Central Park. Right at closing time, crazy Jewish man Seth walked in and bowed deeply with his hands tightly fixed on his sides: his Japanese greeting. "Since we are all Irish today.." he gave me a half dollar coin with JFK. "So you went out drinking." "Yes, I had a guiness, and corned beef.. Jewish corned beef!" He gave me a Japanese bow again and left.
on march 17, 2009 @ 06:10 pm [link]

please don't connect me to India

Two-week ordeal with Verizon finally ended yesterday, with the long-waited arrival of a new modem. Initially, I was told that the modem will arrive in 24 - 48 hours. After days of waiting, when I finally called them, it was already sent back. It seems like the DSL division of Verizon is operated in India- everytime I called, I ended up with a rep with a very heavy Indian accent who didn't quite understand what was going on. So first, they placed an order with a wrong shipping address. UPS sent the package back noting that I have moved. "Did you move, maam?" "No! You're the phone company, you should know that if I moved!" They also couldn't figure out that the package was sent back to Verizon, and kept insisting that it was delivered to a wrong person in Pennsylvania, which was where they have a warehouse to ship out the modem. But after the modem was returned, they obviously did nothing about it. My order was completely ignored. So these people in India, after trying so hard to figure out why the package was shipped to Pennsylvania, placed another order. Then another day goes by and I get a call from an automated message that there's something wrong with the order and I have to call them back. When I called back I initially called back I got an American agent but then she said "There's duplicate orders on your account and they have to fix it." She also noticed that shipping address was incorrect. "Let me transfer you to DSL billing." Noooo! Please transfer my call to India! But they did again and Raj at the Indian operation tried to fix the problem again. The phone connection was so bad I was disconnected in the middle. Then Raj called back and said he had to call back in 30 minutes since the billing department is busy. So later, he called back, and he also got someone from UPS on the phone who confirmed that the package was sent back because the address was incorrect. So they had to place a new order all over again, but this time finally I received it in two days. But there was nothing but the modem in the box I had to call them to install it. Fortunately this time my call was not transferred to India, and the installation went rather smoothly. A new DVD player also arrived yesterday and it was like Christmas! I celebrated with freshly fried red bean donuts.
on march 5, 2009 @ 08:32 pm [link]