Eagles Over the Kennebec

My (third in as many weeks) cellphone works! Yes! I actually completed a call.

Mind you, I had to make said connection through a "call forwarding" protocol (which is automagic, so All Good), nor do I know what my own phone number is, but -- progress has been made in a forwarder direction!

Went to bed last night at eleven, fell asleep around two. At five, Mozart woke me up by alternately licking my nose and chirping joy! and happiness! Sigh. So nice to be loved. I note that he is back in bed, partaking of a Very Substantial mid-morning nap.

Since I was up, I did an email and LJ check, drank coffee, ate half a bagel, coffee, shower, coffee, minor house-straightening, ate the other half of the bagel, discovered it was barely seven and went to work. On the positive side, I've made Real Progress on the final pass of Duainfey. On the not-so-positive side, I've had to strap my right wrist into a brace for the first time in years, and am mainlining aspirin. Gah.

Steve reports that there's a con happening over yonder in Montreal, and that he's greatly enjoying himself.

And that's the timer to end this goof-off session.

Back to work, me.

When last we saw our Briefly Patient Heroine, she was about to make Yet Another phone call to India, in order to inquire after her new cell phone number, and to ask why it was that the small! improved! edition of her communication device was still reporting itself off the grid.

This second call was much shorter, given that I didn't have to spend thirty minutes waiting to talk to someone who would immediately put me on hold for fifteen minutes. So, from that respect -- all good.

The young man who assisted me quickly discovered my new cell number, but none of his Magic Strings of Code(tm) was sufficient to the task of raising the grid. He therefore very sensibly handed me off to his boss.

Armed with computerized maps, this gentleman was able to assure me that my cell phone will work beautifully in...Lewiston. Also in Lisbon (which is hard by Lewiston). And in Kennebunk, and Augusta. It will transmit with bell-like clarity from the top of the hill where the day-job is located. In fact, he assured me, the new phone will work all over the United States.

Excepting, of course, in East Winslow, and -- you saw this coming, right? -- Unity.

Need I say that the other cell phone, condemned to death at the end of the day for lack of the Right Stuff, worked Just Fine in those areas?

Sigh

Note to TracFone. I have been a customer for years. Your service is exactly what I need in what I consider to be an Emergency Device at best and a damned nuisance at worst. But. It was your idea that I switch out the cell phone I've been lugging around for three years for a phone half its size (and weight, too, probably) with a pretty light-up dial. Having to stay on hold for thirty minutes in order to talk to a young lady in India who had to put me on hold again numerous times during our transaction, only to find that (1)I cannot transfer my old phone number and (2) I don't presently have a cell phone number at all (or, as far as I can tell, service) on the new phone is ...annoying. I hope that when I wake up tomorrow, I will have service and a cell phone number.

That is an order.

And thank ghod I'm not one of those folks who can't go anywhere without a cell phone glued to one ear...

Public Service Announcement: Sunday is September 30. Do you know where your copy of A Night in the Lonesome October is?

I am as I type burning a CD of the playlist I've been listening to for the last week. Offered here, in case anyone's interested:

Cafe Europa, Deep Forest
Don't Pay the Ferryman, Chris DeBurgh
Rain King, Counting Crows
Dancin' in the Light (Tarbosh), Entrain
Code Monkey, Jonathon Coulton
In These Shoes, Kirsty MacColl
Camel Walk, Southern Culture on the Skids
Red Headed Woman, Bruce Springsteen
'Cause I'm a Blonde, Julie Brown
Walk the Walk, Poe
Life During Wartime, Talking Heads
Atlantic City, The Band
Copperhead Road, Steve Earle
We Can't Make it Here, James McMurtry
Don't Let Us Get Sick, Warren Zevon

It is finally! cool here in the beautiful downtown central Maine. I hope that the weather has finished its little temper tantrum and will now settle back into Proper Autumnal Behavior.