Sunday, February 5, 2012

Winter. Movies. Knitting

My view from the couch when it's snowing.  The ski trail is in the middle of the picture.

Snow.
Here in Craftsbury, when people (me usually included) 'pray for snow', it's to make the skiing better.  Today I needed it to cover up the ashes and big hole along the driveway before Vince came home. 
It's not that I would never tell him I went off the road but I wanted a chance blame it on the car before he sees the hole and assumes it was my fault.  Even if I would have had my right hand on the steering wheel instead of in the potato chip bag, my rented Ford Focus would have ended up in that snowbank.  

When Vince takes the car to school, I'm carless.  So, one
sunny, clear roaded  (I'm sure that's not a word) day I rented a car for a month without thinking to ask about snow tires.  Today as I crutched (I'm sure that's not a word either ) up our 200 yard driveway with a backpack full of groceries to swap for a bucket of ashes and a snow shovel (it worked pretty well as a crutch actually), I knew I wouldn't forget to ask about the tires next time.

 All dug out and parked at if nothing had happened, I called the rental car people to see if I could get a car with snow tires, he said that no rental cars in Vermont had snow tires, 'it's the law' (now that sounds a little odd) and that the car was 'fine' since it had all-season tires.  I asked him if he wanted to come and drive the car out of the ditch.
Rental car with miraculous go-anywhere all season tires.


Customer service.
Our 'Six Feet Under'  Netflix addiction got to the point where the nights we didn't have one to watch were almost unbearable.  Pathetic, huh?  We finally decided the suffering was just too much and it was worth four dollars a month to upgrade our membership from one dvd at a time to two.  I clicked on 'my account' and noticed I'd been paying 15.99/month (one dvd + streaming) and not the 7.99/month (one dvd) for which I had signed up.  Of course we had never used the streaming because we didn't know we had it and wouldn't have anyway because we both like the anticipation of that red envelope in our mailbox and it being as close as we'll ever be again to the thrill of our photos being in at the drug store.  Evidently during the Netflix fiasco last summer, if you didn't say "don't add streaming," they added it, and since they had your credit card, they charged it.  They just didn't tell you.  So.  For 4 months I'd been paying 15.99 instead of the 7.99 I'd agreed to be paying.  I figured it would be as easy to get my money back as it was to upgrade my plan but she told me she could 'only credit me for three months and I was lucky because until recently they could only credit one month'.  I think that's stealing.  Shouldn't I be making up the rules in this case?


aforA.

I haven't knit since I finished a sweater for my girlfriend's baby that I never saw her wear but I'm finally over the knitting self-confidence issues enough to pick up my needles again.
"afghans for Afghans is a humanitarian and educational people-to-people project that sends hand-knit and crocheted blankets and sweaters, vests, hats, mittens, and socks to the beleaguered people of Afghanistan".  
I'm unreasonably proud of the hat I knit to contribute.

January 2012, World Service delivers our wool gifts to girls and boys in Kabul!



Little bits.
The emergency room doctor had conjunctivitis (pink eye) and kept dabbing his weeping eye with a piece of toilet paper.  Should he be in there?

I have a new favorite movie this week....'Rocket Science'.  About a stuttering boy who joins his high school debate team.

My friend Fred bought a bail jar of pennies at an antique store the other day and there were 1157 pennies in it.


Did you notice?  Nothing about my knee.