Posted on August 12, 2010 - by Ashley Jackson

Thanking God for Small Favors

As those of you who follow me on Facebook likely know, today’s been exciting-in-a-bad-way here at my apartment. When I went to turn my alarm off at 5:30AM, I discovered that my hallway and kitchen were covered in water. Nice warm water that was gushing out of my water heater. About that time, the guy who lives downstairs pounded on my door and told me his ceiling was falling in. (No lie. I saw it later.)

The guy downstairs, who I believe had to leave his apartment, might not feel the same way, but I’ve spent a lot of time today thinking about how things could’ve been worse, and even paused for a bit while moving things out of the flood zone to thank God for small favors. These include, but are not limited to:

1. Nothing in my apartment is damaged, with the exception of some water damage to a couple of books (college lab notebooks which were already covered in lab gunk) and the back of one of my bookshelves. My apartment is now in shambles, but I was able to move everything that was in danger of getting wet. I broke one of my other bookshelves while trying to move it but fixed it with five minutes, a hammer, and some nails, and now it’s better than it was before. (I did hammer my thumb and now it hurts. Whoops.)

2. If anything in my apartment had been damaged, I have renter’s insurance that covers the replacement of personal property damaged due to water heater failures.

3. My apartment is still habitable and was taken care of within a few hours. While I think emergency maintenance was a little slow in responding (30+ minutes), once they arrived, they took care of the situation promptly–by 7:30AM, I had a new water heater and my water was back on. The property manager came to check on me at 8:30AM, half an hour before the office is supposed to open, and by 9:05AM the carpet guys were in my apartment extracting the water, removing the carpet pad, spraying mildicide, and setting up fans and dehumidifiers that are still running. I gripe about little things at my apartment, but the office and maintenance staffs are generally on the ball and they took great care of me (and the guy downstairs) today.

4. I have a wonderful mother who, when I called at 6:15AM to ask if she would come pick up Heath and take him away from the lake that was my apartment, agreed without hesitation.

5. I’m a fortunate yuppie in that I can afford to take the day off work. I have an understanding boss (who told me to enjoy my new hot tub) and the luxury of not losing any money because I stayed home today. And I had the foresight to bank some hours as insurance against occasions like this.

I’ll admit that this morning, after the adrenaline had worn off and I’d done everything I could to help the situation and was waiting helpless for the carpet guys to show up, I seriously considered bursting into tears, but I managed not to. It’s really not worth it. I do feel awful about what happened to the apartment downstairs–all the water ran into it and I don’t know exactly how bad it was, but it was bad. But for me at least, it wasn’t nearly as bad as  it could’ve been, so I’m just going to be very grateful for that and float on…

Regular foodie updates will resume tomorrow (with pictures of Lake Ohmihall)….

Posted on August 10, 2010 - by Ashley Jackson

Movin’ On Up

This afternoon I got an e-mail from the property manager at my future apartment complex informing me that the current tenant had given notice on “your new apartment!” Whoo-hoo! I spent the hour or so after I left work dropping some paperwork off at the new place and picking up paperwork at my current complex, where I had an extremely awkward conversation about why I wanted to leave. But that convo is hopefully done now. I’m moving the third weekend in November!

I was up super early this morning, so I did a rare thing and ate breakfast at my apartment.

It was dark and everything.

Then I went to work, where I was very hungry and decided to indulge in something that’s been absent from the blog for weeks…

Then I had Ye Olde Standard Lunche.

Then I was naughty and had a snack from the recently refilled candy bowl of a co-worker.

Then, I had another Kit-Kat, a Reese’s Cup, and some Cheetos. Fail!

When I came home, I reheated the leftover curry and rice.

And then I went for a 2.25 mile walk around the lake, to give my foot a test run. It kind of hurt but a lot less than it was hurting. Better than I expected.

And now…time to watch some Hoarders.

Posted on August 9, 2010 - by Ashley Jackson

Wachovia (Or, Satan’s Personal Banking Service)

How was your Monday, kids? Mine gave me a headache. I had a strawberry Liberte yogurt and a cranberry orange Pure bar for breakfast. And then things went south…

See, I decided to spend my lunch break running errands. So I went to Kerr Drug and dropped off a prescription to pick up later, and then headed to Wachovia to cash a check that I got from my car insurance company because of a settlement wherein they overcharged a bunch of people.

Except the cute teller told me my account was closed on June 24. The account that I’ve had since 2003. The account which, a co-worker later pointed out, I’ve had all of my financial life.

Now, I don’t use this account for much of anything anymore. I got it in when I started college, and the whole reason I picked Wachovia was because I went to college in Winston-Salem, which is lazy with Wachovias. And Krispy Kremes. I used to exclusively for four years, and after I graduated and started working I got an account with ING Direct, an online bank. But since I still needed a brick-and-mortar bank to cash  and write the occasional check, I also kept my Wachovia account.

So I got to stand in the bank gawking while the cute teller tried to figure out why my account was closed–the account to which, by the way, I attempted to transfer $600 last week. Then he called over another teller who checked it out and for some reason could tell me the amount of money I’d tried to transfer, but didn’t know why my account was closed. Eventually, she told me that after an account has been dormant for three months, it is closed.

I asked if they could cash my check, but they said they couldn’t since they didn’t have an account to draw it against. They said if I waited they could call someone (I don’t know who) and perhaps get it cashed, but I asked for it back, thanked them, and left.

I was hot. But a couple of years ago I would’ve made a big scene, so I consider the fact that I left quietly to indicate personal growth on my part. Because really, while I’m angry that they didn’t bother to tell me via e-mail or snailmail that my account was being closed even though I’ve been a long-term customer, I’ve been wanting to leave Wachovia for a while. I called my mom and vented a little, then went back to work, logged into my ING Direct account, and found my $600 had been put back into my account. So all I lost was some time waiting in the bank. I can get someone else to cash my check for me, and I can work around the no-checks issue when I have to pay deposits for my apartment. If this were on Twitter, it would be tagged #firstworldproblems. I’m letting it go…

(But Wachovia, your customer service sucks. If the devil banked, he’d have an account with you.)

I ate lunch–sungold cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, hummus, and gouda.

I wrote love notes to Wachovia on my white board.

I nibbled on some trail mix, and then ate half of this large banana with some almond butter.

I ate a piece of Godiva chocolate.

I don’t find Godiva that impressive, honestly.

Late in the afternoon, I got paged on a 911 call made from the fourth floor of my office building, so I grabbed my first aid kit, dashed upstairs, and discovered that someone had accidentally dialed 911 again. Let’s be careful with our phones, people. Good to know that so many first responders show up when the call goes out, though (our office first responders, not paramedics!). But this was the second time today that my BP and pulse got all jacked up with no place to go. Sigh.

I left work, went back to the pharmacy to pick up my drugs, and then drove to Target to pick up a few things I needed, plus a russet potato for dinner. I was too hungry to finish waiting for it to cook to eat, though, so I ate a piece of smoked salmon.

That’s appetizing, no?

For dinner, I had baked potatoes two ways.

On the left, half of the baked potato mashed with salt and Brummel & Brown. On the right, half of the baked potato mashed with leftover chicken and broccoli curry from last night. I wasn’t sure this combo would work (the potato+curry combo, that is), but it was great.

After dinner, a square of dark chocolate peppermint crunch…

…and now I am going to bed. I don’t feel too hot at the moment and maybe it’ll go away if I’m asleep…