rest

Gustav Klimt

Saturday evening Michelle and I had our end of NaNo celebratory holiday dinner at Summit House. Great food, fun, and conversation. Took the final exam last night; done with Real Estate Principles. Taking Adrian’s excellent advice, pendrifter is on holiday break.  Meanwhile, doing writing goals, dreams, and resolutions  for 2009. Merry Christmas!

scrambled and splattered

Apparition of Face and Fruit on a Beach, Salvador Dali

This week I’ve felt like an abstract painting, and a touch surreal. Still gathering my brain. Hope to be coherent later.

bureaucratic irritations

The New Bonnet

The imp of irritation has taken aim at my skinny rear end and posted two arrows to it. About a month ago I got a letter from the bank promising all sorts of doom and damnation if they did not within 30 days receive a copy of my home owner’s insurance with them named on the cert as mortgagee. Okay. I gave a call to my insurance company, had a nice chat with a friendly woman who knew exactly what to do, promised to take care of it forthwith, send a copy to the bank and one to me. A couple weeks later I received a copy of the insurance cert with the required information on it for the bank. 

BUT in the mail on Saturday came another letter from the bank–the usual hellfire and damnation promises if they didn’t get their copy of previously requested cert in ten days. Monday morning I fax my copy to the bank and follow up with a call. I get a cheerful young woman who informs me that oh not to worry, it takes a few days to make its way through their computerized fax system to the appropriate desk in the Insurance Department, and anyway, what they need is not my personal home insurance coverage but the dec page from my condominium association’s coverage.

Oh really? I state my apparently confused understanding of the letter–which seemed pretty clear to me upon first reading. Oh not to worry–it’s just a form letter. If I could send a copy of the association’s insurance? Sure. I call the association’s insurance guy, get a friendly young man, he requests I fax the bank’s letter to him and he’ll fulfill the request forthwith. After a few more phone calls between the young man and me for clarification of said request, I received a fax copy of the association’s insurance as verification that he’d sent it also to the bank.

After lunch, I follow up with another call to the bank. I get another nice young woman who informs me oh that coverage is not acceptable. I inform her of what I’d been told by the other friendly young woman. She looks in my file, sees the other friendly young woman’s note, and says oh yeah but they need the association’s whole policy and the bank must be added. I handle such insurance certifications in my job and I know that her request is not feasible and will not be done. I tell her so. She puts me on hold and checks with a manager, comes back on the line and says yep; I’m right, and what I’ve sent is acceptable and they’ll keep an eye out for my coverage copy which is somewhere in their system. If I could call back Wednesday, to verify everything? Okey-dokey. I let that baby suck on its pacifier and play with its toes.

Get home Monday night to find an invoice from Federal Express. Zing! The second arrow strikes. Apparently someone has stolen my Fed Ex account number and on November 20th sent a package from London to Dolce Gabbana’s offices in Italy. Fed Ex wants $160 from me. Oh hell no. I like having the account but the last time I used it was maybe in 2007 or possibly 2006–the credit card I have on it is probably expired–that’s a good thing ’cause I ain’t paying $160 fraudalent dollars to Fed Ex. Their office opens at 7 am CST; I’ll be calling their Billing Department at 6 am PST this morning.