Finally, the one about the flood. Or, can you tell I just re-read Bridget Jones's Diary?

Saturday 25 July, 2009

What an end to a v. v. busy week. Had my BFF Evelyn and her daughter Erin down (up?) for the week from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Wanted to be amazing hostess who would be talked about for months: you know -- specially shaped soaps in the bathroom, scented linens, and wonderful barbecued meals by the pool, where we would frolic in the warm water. It *so* didn't happen that way. The weather and destiny DID NOT GET THE MEMO. It was cold and cloudy and rainy, the pool heater succumbed to some kind of fatal pool-heater condition and would not work, and (I am not exaggerating) two minutes after venturing out onto my elderly deck, and two nanoseconds after being reminded to keep sandals on, Erin slipped on the wet deck boards and jammed the mother of all splinters into the sole of her foot. I've split smaller logs than that for kindling, poor thing. Yes, hostess of the year, that's me.

Yesterday, their last day, we went to the Museum of Nature and walked around (limped around, in Erin's case) checking out the dinosaurs and legions of stuffed birds before they headed off to the airport and the safer environs of home. (Ev and Erin, not the dinosaurs and birds.)

After dinner and playing around on Facebook, I headed upstairs to bed and was soon joined by two scared little girls as a pretty impressive thunderstorm seemed to be stalled right over the house. Coupled with all the rain we've gotten lately that has totally saturated the ground, the storm pushed the groundwater level over the edge. At 1:17 a.m. I was wakened by a horrible noise. A loud, screechy noise. Batted ineffectually at my alarm clock. That was not the problem, nor was it the smoke alarm. It was coming from the basement. Damn, someone had better go down and check out that noise. Sigh. Being a singleton, that person would be me.

I went down to see what it was. I think it was the sump pump seizing. Or starting. I know very little about sump pumps. There was a pool of water covering the entire basement floor, several inches deep, including over the power bars that all my computer equip is plugged into. Wasn't sure if this meant the water might be electrified as the red light on the mouse was still beaming at me cheerily.

The girls' play kitchens were down in the basement. As I was standing on the landing at the bottom of the stairs contemplating the body of water that was my basement (I think naming it Lac Sous-Sol gives it that proper continental flair), a small plastic corn-on-the-cob floated towards me and fetched up against the bottom step. A moment later, a plastic chicken leg followed and bobbed beside it. I stood there, idly wondering if dessert would show up in the shape of a floating cherry pie or portion of crème caramel, but was disappointed. Decided nothing was to be done at that time of night so I went back to bed where I had lovely dreams that all the water evaporated. Got up in the a.m. and checked. Dreams had not come true.


Went upstairs to start coffee, and opened living room curtains. Could hardly help but notice the GIANT HOLE in ground in middle of front lawn. Got my wellies and a coat on over my nightie and headed out to look. One metre across and two metres deep, exposing a large concrete pipe with rebar rungs. Decided it was either an old well, or an escape hatch from the Diefenbunker, which is only a few hundred metres away. Waited, drinking coffee, til 8:30 and called my neighbour Cliff. He's my friend Connie's husband. He is an estimator for a disaster recovery company that does cleanup after fires and floods. V. v. good person to know. And also a super guy. He came over and looked at the basement and arranged for a cleanup crew to come in the next day (Sunday).


Monday 27 July, 2009

Cleanup crew came over yesterday. Crew chief looked exactly like a young Ben Affleck. Had to take myself firmly in hand to avoid excessive drooling. Not sure when I'll start blogging again regularly, as not sure if home computer survived. Will try to keep up at work, but will be sporadic. Seem to have lost use of articles and some verbs. Later, gators...

Tuesday 4 August 2009

Well, my basement has been reduced to concrete and studs. (But not the fun kind of studs, just the wooden ones.) A crew was in on Friday and took everything out of the basement and piled it on the front lawn. You'd be surprised the number of people who wanted to pick through flood-damaged and probably bacteria-infested belongings. One guy claimed he thought I was having a yard sale -- yeah, and the piles of ripped out paneling were a sales item. Insert eye roll here.

The furnace inspector says I need a new furnace, as the water level was over the blower motor wiring and it wouldn't be reliable. So I'm getting a new furnace. A crew will be in to do new drywall on the basement walls sometime in the next couple of weeks. I always wanted to clean out some of the stuff in the basement and fix it up a bit, so I guess you should be careful what you wish for.

The sinkhole turned out to be an old well, thus dashing my hopes that I might lie in wait with a baseball bat for Stephen Harper to pop up out of it. I covered it up with some plywood, which seemed to be a cheaper option than acquiring Lassie to come and fetch me every time one of the girls fell in. I will see about filling it in after I come back from vacation. In the meantime, there's enough room for a body or two, if you have any to dispose of.

Tuesday 25 August, 2009

Have returned from vacation to find that sinkhole has been filled in. I have wonderful neighbours. Not sure if sinkhole is filled entirely with earth or with an earth-body mix. Find that I don't much care.

Thursday 12 November

Finally. Am extremely grateful that drywall is up and painted, and carpeting has been laid. The girls are treating the room like a combination equestrian facility (the galloping)/gymnastics studio (the cartwheeling)/battleground (the flinging of stuffed animals with wild abandon).

I am v. v. happy.

Things to do now that it's almost winter

1. Catch snowflakes on your tongue.



2. Make soup from scratch.



3. Take a bath, put your jammies on, and read a book.



4. Nap.


5. Bake something yummy.



6. Challenge the neighbour kids to a snowball fight.

Attack of the Evil Ninja Assassin Cat

Hello, Large One.

You cannot see me, yet I can sense where you are, helpless prey to my evil ninja skills. I am the fog and the shadows and the darkness. I have concealed myself in plain sight, and you will not know from whence Death comes.

I have clouded your consciousness with my ninja mind powers. I have set my trap skillfully, lying in wait with infinite patience for you and the sweet, sweet flavour of human flesh.

My fangs will taste blood this night.

Sleepover Productions, in association with Evil Ninja Assassin Cat Films, presents Star Wars Episode VII: In the Lair of Maxie the Hutt

Starring:

the Evil Ninja Assassin Cat as Maxie the Hutt

Star Wars action figures as themselves

Filmed by Leah

Directed by Alice and Leah

Story by Leah and Alice

Voices by Alice and Leah

Editing and Post-production by Mum (aka alison)

(Note: in some browsers, the right-hand edge of the movie screen is cut off. To see the film without it being cut off, click on the words 'Youtube" in the lower right-hand corner of the movie screen.)

November

I've always loved November. It's a quiet month -- melancholy and restful, a month to turn inwards, to light fires and read and think. The Celts celebrated their new year now, on the cusp of winter -- the end of the light half of the year and the start of the dark half.

Maybe it's because I was born in November that I feel an affinity for its sombreness and severity, the clear chill of the wind and the spare beauty of the season. The gaudy leaves and skies of October are gone and the colour palette has narrowed to blacks and browns and white. Beauty is still there, but changed, and you have to look for it.


November's sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear.
-Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, canto 1, introduction



When shrieked
The bleak November winds, and smote the woods,
And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades
That met above the merry rivulet
Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still; they seemed
Like old companions in adversity.
- William Cullen Bryant, A Winter Piece



The dusky waters shudder as they shine,
The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way
Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define,
And the gaunt woods, in ragged scant array,
Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy twine.
- Hartley Coleridge, November



My sorrow when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
- Robert Lee Frost, My November Guest



The dead leaves their rich mosaics
Of olive and gold and brown
Had laid on the rain-wet pavements,
Through all the embowered town.
- Samuel Longfellow, November



The wild November come at last
Beneath a veil of rain;
The night winds blows its folds aside,
Her face is full of pain.
The latest of her race, she takes
The Autumn's vacant throne:
She has but one short moon to live,
And she must live alone.
- Richard Henry Stoddard, November



Wrapped in his sad-colored cloak, the Day, like a Puritan, standeth
Stern in the joyless fields, rebuking the lingering color,--
Dying hectic of leaves and the chilly blue of the asters,--
Hearing, perchance, the croak of a crow on the desolate tree-top.
- Bayard Taylor, Home Pastorals--November

Things you don't usually say to your kids before sending them to school (except on the day before Halloween).

"You can Wingardium Leviosa all you want, but no Avada Kadavra-ing anyone. Not even Evan."

"Are your ears on? Don't lose your ears. And don't rub against anybody, the bloodstains will leave a mark."

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!!

Things I am not looking forward to

1. Driving in the snow.


2. Standing in line to renew the car registration.


3. My next mammogram.


4. Death.

(And hey! it's the Sexy Grim Reaper...)

But worst of all:

5. Telling Rachel that the H1N1 vaccination for kids consists of two shots instead of one.

Let the chips fall where they may....preferably in my mouth

I had an epiphany at the gas station yesterday. I was running on fumes when I picked the girls up from daycare, and so we detoured to the gas station on our way home. While waiting in line to pay, my eyes wandered over (not literally though, thank God) and landed on this:


Lay's Fries 'n Gravy potato chips.

Let's stop a minute and consider the massive world-changing import of this. All the goodness of these:

in a bag!

Somewhere a choir sang, and a single ray of sunshine burst through the massive overcast sky, pierced the grimy gas-station window, and illuminated the chips in all their glory. Like someone in a dream, I reverently grasped the precious bag (single serving -- I haven't found the big ones yet) and purchased it in a state of enlightened grace and interior peace. Or maybe I was just hungry.

When I got home, I shooed the girls outside to play and then took a half-hour vacation from life with my book and the bag of chips. It was better than a weekend in Montreal. (No hangover.) They are good. Scary good. It will be a very bad thing if I find the big bags.

The flavour choice is pure genius. What goes better with potatoes than gravy? Nothing. (Well, ketchup, maybe. But here's the best part -- Lay's has ketchup chips too.)

They are thin and crispy, and if I closed my eyes and imagined the smell of car exhaust, it was just like standing outside one of these:


scarfing down a mouth-burning pile of gravy-drenched fries. Only without the burning part. Or the gravy stains on my jeans. Pure. Deliciousness.

Dear Lay's,

Thanks for creating such a wonderful new snack. My tastebuds thank you. My waistline, however, is less than impressed. Please supply me with an address to which I can send the bills for my new larger clothing.

Your devoted friend,

Alison

I got to thinking that Lay's has pretty well created a whole balanced meal of chips.

There's the main course, roast chicken:




The side-dish, fries and gravy:



A vegetable:

And a condiment:



To round it out, all we need is for Lay's to come up with dessert:


_______________________________

I would just like to go on record as saying that I do not work for Lay's, nor have they paid me to say nice things about their potato chips. But, if they want to send me a case of Fries 'n Gravy chips to say thanks, I'd be very totally OK with that. Seriously.

Halloween is for exhibitionists -- a reprise

"When did Halloween become an excuse to take your clothes off and call it a costume?"-- Lainey

I was reminded of that quote the other day when the girls and I went into a costume store to track down a Gryffindor robe for Rae, who wants to be Hermione Granger for Halloween.

I remember when Halloween costume choices were witch, vampire, hobo, gypsy and maybe princess. Sigh. The slutty costumes are back. And in retaliation, so is last year's Halloween blog.

Halloween costumes, or, What's another word for slutty?

Around our house, Halloween costumes have become a big deal. The girls start thinking about what they want to be somewhere around July September, and we start looking around for ways to make them the costumes they want. This year, Rae wanted to be a pirate, and Leah wanted to be Princess Leia, due to her obsession with Star Wars, which shortly predated her obsession with Labyrinth.

Rae's costume was easy enough. We bought the hat/scarf and a set containing eye patch, earring, hook and sword at Walmart, added black pants from home, and a wonderful puffy shirt/waistcoat combo that was loaned to us by my friend Janice, et voila, a scurvy buccaneer. Leah's was not so easy. After a few painful attempts to coil her hair into Leia's hair bagels, I gave up and did something I've never done before. I ordered her costume online. (I feel like such a sell-out.)

Oh, before I get much further in the story, here is a picture of my incredibly cute offspring, taken this morning before school -- because God knows what kind of shape the costumes will be in when they get off the school bus this afternoon.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, ordering online. I ordered from an outfit that is associated with a local party supplies store, so instead of paying shipping to my house, I picked the costume up at the party store.

When I got there on Wednesday to pick it up, I was floored by all the Halloween stuff they had -- costumes, decorations, make-up, props -- it was truly amazing. But what caught my eye the most was a poster advertising costumes for a company called Secret Dreams. They were women's costumes, and were all kind of....um....slutty. All the costume names were prefaced with the word 'sexy', you know, like 'Sexy Angel', and 'Sexy I Dream of Jeannie', and (God help us all) 'Sexy Tinkerbell'.

Umm, yeah. My eyes started rolling. But you can see -- sort of -- how those female archetypes could be seen as sexy. What blew my mind was what other not-very-sexy costumes they managed to sex up. I present to you, now, the real thing, and the Secret Dreams versions. And I'm not making this up, you know.

The real Wednesday Addams from the Addams Family (note that she is a seven-year-old girl):

And the slutty 'Sexy Wednesday Addams':

A real NASCAR driver:


And the sleazy 'Sexy NASCAR Driver':



But the one that really boggled my mind as being something that was not the least bit sexy was this, the real Ghostbusters:


And (I shit you not), the skanky 'Sexy Ghostbuster':

I am left almost speechless. And needing a thesaurus to come up with more synonyms for 'slutty'.

I did notice, however, that this sluttiness sleaziness skankiness 'sexiness' doesn't seem to be present in the mens' costumes. Oh no siree, Bob. Not at all.

Holy Halloween Inequity, Batman:

Here's Neo, from The Matrix. Not a lotta skin showing here, is there?

What we need is the 'Sexy Casino Royale James Bond' costume -- you know, to even things up for us women:




Wait. On second thought, thinking of what most men actually look like, maybe Neo isn't such a bad costume idea after all.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

(Photos courtesy of Google, except for the picture of my adorable spawn, courtesy of me.)

Earworm mashup

Have you ever wondered what kind of earworm you get from listening to the radio on the way to daycare while the kids are singing loudly in the back seat? No? Well, on the off-chance that you have, here's what's circling around in my head and won't leave:

You say that you're leaving, well that comes as no surprise.....Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, BANANAPHONE!!

Here's what they sound like separately. I can only ask that you imagine what they sound like together. (Or not, if you want to retain your sanity.)






Somehow, I doubt that Blue Rodeo and Raffi will be touring together anytime soon.

Please shoot me now.

Nobody wants to get out of bed on Sunday mornings

Yeah, I know it's lame to blog the cat, but I'm still working on the flood post and a couple of others. This is just sort of a place holder, so you don't think I've given up blogging and moved to Peru or become a nun or something.

I heart the Racquet of Death

I'm very fond of my house. But, this morning, for a few horrible seconds, I thought that I might have to move. Seriously. There I was, just after 5 a.m., standing half asleep in front of the coffee maker, wondering if I could psychically will it to brew faster, when I noticed that Max was staring intently at something. Something on the drapes that cover the sliding glass doors that lead out to the deck.

Famed comedian Paula Poundstone once said, "The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe murderer." On the bright side, Max wasn't looking at an axe-murderer. But I wasn't lucky enough for it to be a moth, either. No. What was crawling up the curtains, being stared at intently by the Evil Ninja Assassin Cat, were two GIANT FREAKING SPIDERS. And I mean giant. They were black and chitinous and were dripping blood and venom from their oversized scimitar-like fangs. (I don't think it's a secret how I really feel about spiders.)

As soon as my heart started beating again, I threw a handful of teabags at Max to distract him (they were the only thing within reach that wasn't breakable). He was trying to bat at the monsters, and the last thing I wanted was for them to drop to the floor and skitter off somewhere. I would God's honest truth have to sell the house and move rather than live there not knowing where the spiders went. Max stalked off, feelings hurt, and I crept over to the cupboard under the sink and pulled out the Racquet of Death.

(Insert sound of heavenly choir singing here.)

Let me digress a bit to explain that the Racquet of Death is a battery-operated bug zapper shaped like a tennis racquet. Mine was a gift from the lovely and talented Jen, on the occasion of my visit to Jenworld this past August (note to self: which I should blog, now I have the photos uploaded from the camera). It is an amazing thing, this Racquet of Death (RoD). You can zap flies, wasps, mosquitoes and even fruit flies into bug oblivion. But best of all, you can dispatch spiders into the great beyond.

So, screwing my courage to the sticking place (Shakespeare at 5 a.m. Not bad.) I pressed the power button and lightly pressed the RoD against the first spider on the curtain. There was a pop and a sizzle. I quickly fried the other one just as it was about to get away drop down on me and tear my throat out. Whew, it was close, but in the end I emerged victorious, and the arachnids were reduced to crispy little spider balls on the floor.

Alison 2, spiders 0

And don't give me that crap about how it's going to rain now, because I really don't care.

Artist's rendition of Alison battling the giant,
slavering, evil, bloodthirsty, nasty, awful,
beastly, malevolent, malicious spiders.
(Proportions pretty much to scale.)

Breakfast with Robert Duvall

Is it wrong to amuse yourself with pop-culture references at your children's expense? 'Cause if it is, I don't want to be right.

Today, at the breakfast table:

Me (placing plates on the table): Here you go. Toasted bagel with cheese for Leah, and peanut butter toast for Rachel.

Rachel: Mmmmm. Peanut butter. I love peanut butter. I love it when it's all melty on the toast*. I love the smell of peanut butter in the morning.

Me: Does it smell like victory?

Rachel: What?

Me: Never mind.

___________________________

*Please note that Rachel, like her mother, recognizes the superiority of materials being applied to hot, as opposed to cold, toast.

Oh, I have *GOT* to read this

This is an actual book, not a joke.




* Published by Quirk Books *

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

The Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!

By Jane Austen
and Seth Grahame-Smith

5-1/4 x 8 in; 320 pp ;
Paperback
Published in March, 2009
ISBN 9781594743344
ISBN10 1594743347

$12.95

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies -- "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem.

As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.

Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.

Jane Austen is the author of Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and other masterpieces of English literature.

Seth Grahame-Smith once took a class in English literature. He lives in Los Angeles.

For media information please contact:
Melissa Monachello
Quirk Books, Publicity Manager
215.627.3581 x 217
Melissa_m@quirkbooks.com
_______________________________

I am definitely pitching this to my book club! Perhaps Colin Firth could reprise his Mr. Darcy role in the inevitable movie, or maybe they could just get Simon Pegg.

Stream of random thoughts while undergoing gum surgery with the added bonus of a bone graft

OK. I'm frozen. Man, am I frozen. My gums, my cheek, even my nose feels frozen. My tongue feels like the Hindenburg. 'Oh, the humanity.' Hee. OK. They're starting. Close eyes. Yeah, probably better not to see what's going on. Think about something pleasant. Yes, pleasant. Ice cream, kittens, the Labour Day weekend in Sudbury. Don't think about what he's actually doing in there. Crack eyes a bit..... CLOSE THEM, CLOSE THEM, CLOSE THEM! Christ, that was a scalpel thingie! HE'S CUTTING MY GUMS! Calm down, calm down. Now think about the weekend again and how much fun it was to see everyone and eat all that great food and....Damn, they're stretching my mouth open a lot. Both of them have their hands in there and there are other things in there too. Fuck. I'm going to look like Jack Nicholson's Joker when they're done, I just know it. When the procedure is over I'll snarl at the periodontist, and then he'll pass me a mirror with shaking hands, and I'll look into it and see this:

and start laughing all manaically and crazy-like.... What's that noise?! The scraping noise. Aaaugh! I don't want to hear the scraping noise. Concentrate. I can hear some music. Yes, over the scraping and the steady sucking drone of the spit-sucking thingie I can hear.......Coldplay! Yes, it's Coldplay. 'Clocks' to be exact. Good song. Most of them are, aren't they? I love Chris Martin's voice. It's so pure and clear. And high. I wonder if the periodontist could hit any of those high notes if I just elbowed him in the goolies. I could do it too. Damn right I could. Except for the fact that he's still DIGGING AROUND IN MY MOUTH WITH SHARP METAL OBJECTS. Maybe elbowing him right this minute would be a bad idea...... Crack eyes a bit..... CLOSE THEM, CLOSE THEM, CLOSE THEM!!!!!!! A drill heading for my mouth!!!! A big freaking drill! I think they use smaller drills out in Fort McMurray going after crude in the tar sands. Seriously. OK, concentrate. Concentrate on the music again. What is it? Hard to hear over the scraping and digging (I feel nauseous) and digging and scraping and sucking.....it's.......Taylor Swift. 'Love Story'. But not the version the girls made me download. Nope, it's some kind of 'rock' remix. The banjo is gone, replaced with some bad guitar track. I like the original one with the banjo better. Hmmm. Banjo. Now there's an instrument you don't hear very often, and when you do, it's almost always in folk or country music. Yeah, you never run into a tall, handsome stranger in a wine bar on Carnaby Street, his tousled hair skimming the collar of his silk shirt, his long sensitive fingers caressing the stem of his wine glass while he gazes into your eyes and says, "I'm a musician. I'm First Banjo with the London Symphony Orchestra." Hardly ever happens. And Coldplay probably won't be bringing a banjo player on tour anytime soon either. A good thing too. Gwyneth would most likely look down her nose at a banjo player and quickly usher little Apple and Moses out of the room. Speaking of rooms, is it hot in here? CRAP! Something just splashed my face. It was cold, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't blood. Hey, the sucking noise stopped. Now the sucking thingie is making a horrible noise -- the kind of noise that might result from a small piece of excised flesh blocking the intake. DO NOT CRACK OPEN EYES TO SEE IF A SMALL PIECE OF YOUR FLESH IS BLOCKING THE INTAKE!!!!!!!!!!!! MUST. DISTRACT. SELF. KITTENS! DANIEL CRAIG! CUPCAKES! Ah, noise is gone. Scraping and drilling finished. Now he's packing in the bone graft material. He's certainly pushing a lot of stuff in there. Holy crap, I wonder if they measure that stuff in kilos. Wait, he's saying something. Answer him: "You're done now? You just have to suture? OK. Thanks." KEEP EYES SHUT. You don't want to see the suturing. Truly, you don't. Can't feel the suturing. Good. Don't think about the suturing. Is that a fly on my cheek?? Nope, it's the extra thread trailing across my cheek while he sews! AAAAAAAUGH!! KITTENS! DANIEL CRAIG! HUGH JACKMAN! CUPCAKES! CHOCOLATE MARTINIS! CHRISTMAS MORNING!

Done. It's all over.

Thank God. I'm thinking I'll be having soup for dinner. And scotch.

Lots of scotch.

Dear Sympatico, bite me.

Dear Sympatico,

You have been my Internet service provider for many years now. And your parent company has been my home phone provider too. Though you weren't singled out the last time I sent letters to deserving people, please rest assured that you have totally made the list this time.

Pop quiz: Customer Service -- are you familiar with the term? I can't fault the manners and puppy-like enthusiasm of the people who 'helped' me over the last few weeks, but I am questioning their knowledge of modem technology and/or their familiarity with the names for the myriad bits and pieces needed to set up a wireless modem. Training them to 1) politely agree to send me specific items that I should have had in the first place, and then 2) promptly send me random other things by Express Post is annoying and ultimately unproductive.

Allow me to recap the events of the last few weeks with an emphasis on what your customer-service agents agreed to do for me, and what they ultimately ended up doing for me. Now some of these have nothing to do with Sympatico, except to highlight how frustrated I became when I completed all kinds of peripheral tasks and was still unable to log on to the Internet:

• July 24, 2009 - after an exceedingly wet July that had saturated the soil around my house, an intense thunderstorm stalled over Kanata/Stittsville/Carp, dropping nearly 6 inches of rain in 3 hours. My basement flooded, and the modem (supplied by Sympatico) was ruined, as it was plugged into a power bar that ended up submerged.
  

• A few days later - Called Sympatico Internet and asked them to send me a new modem, as the old one was destroyed in the flood

• Explained that I couldn't return the malfunctioning one as it was contaminated by stormwater and in a landfill somewhere

• Got miffed that they still were going to charge me for the modem I would not be returning

• Realized that I could just submit the invoice to the insurance company, and told Sympatico to send me the new wireless modem and bill me for it

• Visited IKEA and purchased a Mikael computer desk, keeping receipt for insurance

• Heaved the two boxes into car trunk with Leah's help

• Dragged/carried the two boxes into the house with Leah's help

• Assembled Mikael computer desk with Leah's help and Rachel's supervision. This took roughly 3 hours, .5 of which were spent reclaiming the various screwdrivers and hardware from Rachel at various points in the building process

• Set up computer on the new Mikael computer desk and plugged everything in correctly!

• Got out the sealed box that Sympatico sent me with the new wireless modem and began to read the instructions. Got to the third or so sentence and read: Contents. You should have the following: modem, power cord, ethernet cable, phone cable, phone-jack splitter, 4 filters.

• Looked in box. Took out modem and power cord.

• Turned box over and shook it. Nothing further fell out.

• Called the Sympatico customer-service number. Spoke to a very nice and apologetic woman in INDIA, who promised to send me the missing pieces (ethernet cable, phone cable, phone-jack splitter, 4 filters) asap. Idly wondered if the parts would be coming from Calcutta by donkey cart or moped taxi.

• Poured glass of wine and played Mine Sweeper on the computer until bedtime.

• Two days later, received a package. Was very excited! Opened it to find an ethernet cable, a telephone cable, and 4 filters. No phone-jack splitter. And since I have only one phone jack operational since the flood, it's needed for both the phone and the modem, so a splitter is kind of mandatory.
  

• Called Sympatico customer-service number. Spoke to a very nice and apologetic man in India, who promised to send me the missing phone-jack splitter asap.

• Two days later, received another package. Was very excited! Finally, I'd be back online again! Opened it to find 4 more inline filters. No phone-jack splitter.
  

• Said a lot of four-letter words. Wondered if helpful man in India knew what a phone-jack splitter was.
  

• Complained about the whole situation to my friend, who told me that I could buy a phone-jack splitter at Dollarama.

• Purchased phone-jack splitter at Dollarama for $1.25.

• Finally installed and activated wireless modem more than one month after making the call to replace the ruined modem. Used Canada Post website to calculate that Sympatico probably spent more than $45 to ship me the wrong pieces of equipment, not to mention the cost of the 8 or 10 filters that were sent to me in error.

I hear that Internet service is available through the cable company. I might have to check into that. And I understand that they do telephone service too.

Bite meHave a nice day,

Alison