Bits and Pieces

I traded in my car last friday for a new one. Exactly the same, except this one has a cute sunroof. I love it. Oh, and this one has less accumulated dog hair and other detritus from my life.

Today in the parking garage the three cars in front of me drove by a little old lady trying to manually push her car backwards out of a parking space. I rolled down my window and told her I'd be back after parking my car. So, I parked my car and walked back to see if I could help. Two more cars drove by, the drivers had their eyes carefully averted. Apparently her reverse gear had gone out and she just wanted to drive the car home. She was a wreck, sweaty and near tears. She said she didn't want to keep me from where I was going. She didn't. I just paused for a second to help her out. Actually, I waved down three grown men who were studiously avoiding noticing that she needed help. I called out to them for help in such a way that they couldn't pretend that they didn't see us/didn't know. People it took less than two minutes to help her out.

There are some dogs at our house that are treading on thin ice with me Ever since the squirrel kill this weekend they have become obsessed with squirrel patrol. Any rustle of leaves demands an immediate "quick response" situation, with all three trying to cram themselves through the doggy door to the backyard for a minimum of a half-hour of maniacally running from tree to tree checkingfor intruders. God forbid that possum (that used to hang out on the back fence during the spring) come back. Bess is the only sensible one who remains firmly on her throne and looks out the window at them with derision.

We kept receiving in the mail a cancellation notice for our home insurance policy. I called several times and was told it was a mistake. A couple weeks ago I received yet another threat of cancellation for non-payment. I had my escrow account in my hand at the time and could see where a payment had been made for said insurance policy so I went ballistic. Finally, it was discovered that there were two policies on our house. So I arranged to have the extraneous one cancelled. Two days ago we received a check in the post as refund for the duplicate policy. To the tun of $600! So, that's nice, except that they'd taken that amount from escrow in last year's period, which caused my escrow account to go short and, consequently, my monthly payments to go up. So, I guess at the end of the year, the account will be over and the payments will come back down. Oh! The excitment of being a homeowner! The adventure never ends!