Another Lovely Day in Lovely Arizona…

Now we know why “balmy” has that double meaning…

It’s a lovely morning and any time now, my head could stop hurting… Wow! WHAT a day!!!!!

And it’s only half-done. Here I am, down at the church office for the weekly sit-around-doing-nothin’-for-four-hours volunteer gig.

Shortly after dawn cracks, word comes in on the cormputer that someone has hacked into my Amazon Sellers account, my websites, my email, and possibly from there they got into my credit union accounts. I believe this attempt was headed off at the pass, but cannot prove it….and am especially alarmed because the CU won’t let me into my business account. The hacker’s strategy was surprisingly credible….so much so that Grayson (FaM’s Web guru) remarked on how well done it was.

Oh, my GAWD, what a series of run-arounds, hassles, and hair-yankers ensued!!!

Of course, you can NOT reach a human at Amazon, not for love nor money.

Getting one on the phone at the credit union: not much better. After I said my next call was going to be to the FBI, one of the CU nabobs finally connected me with their fraud department. This woman managed to get my password changed and get me into my bidness checking account. Far as I could tell, nothing had been siphoned out of it…yet.

So…godlmighty was i ever furious! As you can imagine, that made for a just DUCKY morning — several hours of it!  Once the dust settled, I decided that by dayum! I am closing that seller’s account. The thing has sold exactly zero (count’em: 0) books. It really hadn’t occurred to me that the damn thing represents a security risk to my own bank accounts, forgodsake. But of course it does: a good hacker could easily get access to your account information.

For awhile it looked like I was going to have to cancel this afternoon’s Boredom Shift at the church office, go to one of the CU’s offices, and sit there refusing to leave until someone in charge got off their duff to help untangle the mess. But apparently the simple statement, “…and my next call will be to the FBI” is the banker’s equivalent of “Open Sesame!”

I think that in addition to closing the Amazon seller’s account, I should also close my bidness account at the credit union. There’s a decent amount of money in there, but the truth is, about 97% of it was earned quite some time ago. I haven’t had a decently paying client in many a moon. And the other truth to tell, that’s probably because I can barely contemplate the thought of reading another line of gawdawful Chinglish academicese. Really: I’d make better money cleaning house, and the work would be a whole lot less brain-banging.

Seriously: I need to find something else to fill the empty hours. Before the Plague, I’d thought about volunteering at the wildlife rescue. Now, of course, one would like not to expose oneself to the Disease (to say nothing of rabies, ticks, and fleas). Drawing and painting is a possibility… Heh! The other day, I came across a drawing I’d made of my son while he was in San Francisco and thought…jeez! That thang ain’t half-bad! Maybe I can revive that talent.

Otherwise, while the weather is almost coolish, sorta: maybe a whole lot of hiking? Or else just walking on the flat through the city. Last time SDXB got the bright idea that we should go up the back trail into the Px Mountain Preserve, everybody else and his little brother, sister, mother, father, aunt, uncle, and dog had the same idea. It was just MOBBED up there. Dunno about you, but I do not go hiking in the desert so as to rub elbows with every hoi and polloi in the city. Blee-agh!

The canal is too dangerous — too many bums and pree-verts. But one could just start walking south out of the’Hood or easterly into the fancier realms of North Central. It’s really a lovely area…why not use the whole district as a giant hiking park? If I drove us down here to the Cult HQ, we could leave the car in the parking lot, go down the Central Avenue walking trail south to one of the fancier neighborhoods, and roam back and forth amongst the Mansions of the Richerati. That would be reasonably safe, and if you like over-reaching architecture,  pleasant enough.

OMG! Gary — office manager — toddled in, dropped his lunch dishes in the dishwasher, and then turned on the damn machine. The kitchen/junk room is right adjacent to the reception cubbyhole, and that damn washer is spectacularly un-soundproofed. It whines, a nice steady wooooooooooooooooo. And it thumps: ker-thum-THUMP-thum-thump in perfect harmony with the throbbing of one’s headache. Ohhh gawd, I wanna blow the thing up!

Two more hours to go.

One thing about sitting here twiddling your thumbs all afternoon. You learn some exotic things and meet some exotic folks.

Guy comes sashaying past the windows up to the front door. He’s tall, dark. slender, ever-so-slightly surly-looking, longish hair tightly wrapped to the back/top of his head with an elastic band, and not someone you’d wanna meet at the end of a dark alley.

“‘I’m with Sun Devil Hoods,” says he. “Here to clean the kitchen stove hoods.”

“You prob’ly want the school kitchen.” He looks blank. “Straight across the parking lot.”

The hood guy… LOL! Has ever a man been in a more appropriate job? 😀

One hour and 15 minutes left to go.

UPS Dude: Hallelujah, he knows to put the boxes on the table in the next room. I don’t even have to carry them in there.

One hour and 5 minutes left to go.

A little stack of the past four issues of the Smithsonian, sitting here. My…its former glory has faded. At least, so I think. Was it always 8 1/2 x 11? Was the content always ever so slightly condescending, dumbed down for the ill-educated products of American public schooling? Did it always look like a wan knock-off of National Geographic? Funny…i don’t remember it that way.

Yipes! Phone rings…lifts me out of my chair, here in the silence.

“All Saints Episcopal Church this is Vicky how may i help you?”

“Hello my name is Audrey and i’m with mumble disability yadda blah blah”… A tape recording.

Hang up.

I hate that phone.

59 minutes left to go.

Is this headache and nagging dizzy spell a clue to ambient smog?

Wunderground won’t let me see the weather report without turning off my ad-blocker. FAT chance, Wunderground!

Over to Accuweather: “Air Quality: Excellent.”

Say what?  Sooo…the headache is an incipient covid symptom, right?  Eeeeek!

Are there really people who LISTEN to a tape-recorded telephone sales pitch? Why? Why on earth would a person do that? How stupid would such a person have to be? And why would you want to sell something to someone whose IQ is presumably so limited that it is illegal to enter into a contract with them?

Hungry. Yea verily, one might even say “spectacularly hungry.”

Go by AJs on the way home and pick up some prepared chow for dinner?

Naaahhhh….can’t stand the prospect. Got salmon. Got steak. Got asparagus. Got roasted taters. Got a barbecue. Go straight home.

44 minutes left to go.

Accountant slips out early. She worries that the (UNholy!!!) traffic from the school may not have thinned out yet.

38 minutes left to go.

Gary, having finished off a late lunch, sneaks in and snabs a piece of candy. He’s only slightly heartbreakingly cute…what a doll! Unfortunately, rather too young (by about 35 years).

31 minutes left to go.

Phone jangles.

“All saints episcopal church this is vicky how may i help you?”

{silence)

Third hang-up of the day.

Fourth, if you count the robocall that I hung up on.

Gary inspects the conference table, seeking more candy. Putters around. Chats. leaves.

27 minutes to go.

Fr Dan out the door. Headed to meet his physical trainer. Right age. But also gay.

What IS it with all the gay staff in this place? 😀  Not to say <3 …

17 minutes left to go.

It’s clabbering up. Please, Gawd, don’t let it rain before I can get home and toss some chow on the grill.

hmmmmmmm…. Yeah, it’s definitely gonna rain. But maybe not very soon.

15 minutes to go.

One ringy dingy two ringy dingies… A woman. Wants Nanette. Nanette has flown the coop. She wants to confirm they arranged for altar flowers for some upcoming rite of passage.

Am I right that Nanette has left? I think so. I’m not getting up to ask, though. Ugh.

Yes I am.

No, I’m wrong: she has not left. She and Gary are trying to get her computer to do some damnfool thing: they’re totally absorbed. I leave the message for her: she’ll probably be just as glad not to have been interrupted.

7 minutes to go.

It’s getting darker out there, damn fast. I yam soooooo hungry! Ruby Doobie must need to go out. If it rains, she’ll miss her doggy-walk and then will be a pissed pooch.

Hmmmm…..  If one were to wrap this up and send it off, then get up and turn off the lights and lock the front door, it would be exactly time for me to leave.

4 minutes to go.

Outta here!!!