Stinky Sue

When she was a baby, I used the nickname "Stinky Sue" on her once - a character name was what I was thinking, not that she was malodorous - and it stuck, at least for me it did.

I accidentally call her that in public sometimes. Oh well, not really accidentally. I must like to see her glower at me. I seem to pull her chain as often as she yanks mine.

From my recollection of my own teen-hood, early adulthood, and still to this day - it has been the same symbiosis with my Mother, mutual chain-yanking.

Love the mother/daughter dynamic. It is most productive in shaping character. I try to express to Julia that even though she needles me at times, she also brings the best out in me. (And vice versa is my intention.)

Vonage is no bargain

I made the mistake of checking out an internet phone service that promised me more than they could deliver.

It is a New Jersey address that I am shipping the modem back to - which I have to pay for. And until they get that modem back, which was never ever connected, I am being charged a fee of $40, besides the money they took out for hookup and S&H - another $41. Postage was $7.20 - out of my pocket.

To start with, I was erroneously charged twice for connecting, with one of those fees being $15 more than the other. The charge to my checking account was immediate; the refund takes up to 5 days to get back to where it came from. That could have been a major financial crisis for me if I hadn't seen that charge and thinking I had money in my account, wrote checks against it.

I have had one absurd communication issue after another with this internet phone service and have vowed to warn others to stay away from them. Every call was long and the co-understanding was strained.

The operators were always apologetic that I had any problems, and after my first attempt at cancelling the plan before I even hooked up anything, I was offered a better deal if I didn't cancel. I accepted the better deal and continued to have one communication problem on top of another, and no phone service; it was all so absurd.

It was the most frustrating week trying to get a phone in my home and my cell minutes are just about used up for the month, most of them spent trying to straighten out Vonage's mistakes.

So, I am still waiting for a refund of $41, a refund of $40, and just forget about getting reimbursed for the $7.20 for S&H I was told. All that, and I never used the service.

I am cutting my losses now.

Mushroom love

I have maintained a distaste for eating mushrooms, as a rule. I eat a mostly vegetarian diet, peppered with seafood upon occasions. One would think I should like mushrooms, which are in a lot of dishes. I pick them out, or eat around, or order something that doesn't have them in it.

I LOVE seeing mushrooms in the wild, though. Their colors and shapes inspire me. They have always seemed to have a Presence about them.

Someone sent me this link to a presentation, "Six Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World", and I was intrigued the first time I watched it, and then amazed as the information sank in about the nature of mycelium and all of the potentials inferred because of that. I have sat on this information for weeks and wondered who I can share it with. You, of course. Check it out. It should make an impact, and then feel free to pass IT on.