An open letter to my mortgage company

Dear Jerks,

As much as I love wasting hours of my life on hold with your collections and customer service departments, it's getting kinda old. Especially because the error in accounting is entirely yours.

I've made my payments, on time and without exception. In fact, the checks posted weeks ago, a fact I've explained to all four of your employees that have either reached me at home, at work, or on my cell phone. Once I explain everything to your employees, they usually say something helpful like "Oh wow, yeah this is a mistake," or "I don't know what's going on here," and then end by telling me "I'm going transfer you to customer service." Twice their transfers have led me to 35-45 minutes waiting periods, all of which I've ended because my lunch break was up. Twice the collections representative hung up on me when he/she tried to transfer departments.

The woman with whom I spoke this morning--my cherished Sunday morning--was frustrated herself. After a couple minutes of her bullshit customer service lines, she said, "Ok, I'm gonna be real with you, I can't even see my supervisor--I don't know where she is right now." Awesome. Then I got disconnected when she tried to transfer me to customer service.

Awesome.

So no, I won't be making a payment over the phone because I didn't do anything wrong. Your company messed up, your employees have backed up my claim, and next time a collections rep calls me at work, I'm going to refer them to the letter I've slipped in January's payment. It's written for the customer service department and it includes my phone number and the best time to reach me. Until then, leave me alone.

Sincerely,
Whitney

Frozen waffles

I'm working from my kitchen table right now as I can't get my car out of the snow. I'm pretty sure the old woman living behind us is throwing frozen waffles out to her two Rottweilers.

Man, working at home is exciting.

Monster Snow Storm

I've been reading the Weather Channel's front-page narrative, titled "Monster Snow Storm" and it's kind of poetic:

Heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain have raced across the Midwest into the Northeast as yet another powerful early season December winter storm roars along headed to the Atlantic coast to redevelop and fire a ferocious storm into the Maritimes...

...After a quick burst of sleet and freezing rain mainly from the Mason-Dixon Line northward this early morning, rain will rapidly push northward from Virginia, through eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to New York City as temperatures rise with a mild but strong wind off the Atlantic. The I-95 Corridor from New York City to Washington should just be wet through Sunday evening.

I can't find a permalink so chances are by the time you click there it will be gone or modified, but it looks like this narrative feature is a regular thing on Weather.com. I will be checking it more often.

Quick hit

Found this great gallery of decorating ideas via KRISATOMIC: LivingEtc. I'm a big fan of the sections on "Walls," as I have a ridiculous amount of photos to put up. Great ideas.

From the safety of my winter hibernation...

Now that the snow is flying, I am content to sit by my window sipping coffee, knitting hats, and thinking about all the things I'll do around the house come Spring. These daydreams include what has become a staple of all my fantasies: the illusion of more time.

This summer, for example, I constantly claimed that post-campaign I'd have more time. Now it's post-February I'll have more time. This spring--I claim again--I'll have more time. It's not likely that I'll have more free time at all. In fact, it's likely that I'll be up to my waist in local and presidential campaigning.

Still, one can fantasize and fantasize I will:

• Get Your Garden On with Gayla Trail, a workshop held in Toronto this April with the author of You Grow Girl. She's an urban garden goddess.
• Food not Lawns: My little patch of grass has such potential, at least from the perch of my warm window seat.
• The removal of this monstrosity. Steve and his pops did put a nice, new door on the outside to keep the heat from pouring into the kitchen of our tenant but it's likely we'll scrap and rebuild the whole thing. And I'll help, I swear.
• Paint the downstairs, including the room that STILL has painter's tape around the windows. This could happen sooner than the Spring, I know, but the fumes. The fumes!