friday follies

The Eagle has landed in Boston! So let the last and long awaited college visit commence! M was on a flight out at 10 and was on the ground by 11. Not a bad way to travel, if you discount the two hours she probably spent sitting around due to Kevin's hyper-reliability when it comes to airport arrivals. So stay tuned. Nothing from the school last weekend yet, we don't know if that means they're not interested or just overwhelmed with the job of choosing from the pool (no pun intended).

I'm weary of work because it isn't getting any better. I am tired of the implication that I'm not performing up to par, I take pride in my work and think I've worked pretty hard. And my paychecks are still pretty paltry and when I say I have to leave at a certain time for an appointment, I don't appreciate being kept until five minutes past that time. I find it rude. The problem is that I can't do the work of another person, I can only do my work. If that other person wants to give me more work, then I will be happy to do it. But I can't be responsible for some of these things. I think 90% of people would have walked off this job months ago. Many did. Although not always by their own choice, amazingly. I now understand the pitied looks I got in my first few weeks.

Anyway onto some better news, the bookrags case has resurfaced. I think at last update I had been stonewalled through my own efforts, the PayPal refusal to help me, and more recently the LL Bean VISA's reported inability to help because I had 'accepted the service rendered.' So I went to other levels, notified the Better Business Bureau, as well as reported my story to consumeraffairs.com (although I have yet to find it posted there, as a matter of fact).

So this morning, all of a sudden out of the blue appear two credits, two of the three charges were reversed! I was happy to see that but I don't know what brought it about - was it the Better Business Bureau? I will have to wait and see. And what of the third study guide to which I no longer have access? I had that one for about two weeks instead of just one, as the others. Does that mean I have to pay for it? At any rate, two refunds are better than none. But I should never have had to go to such extremes to gain resolution.

And I'm on a new crusade. A month or two ago, I was looking at my Target VISA statement (and I know, this makes me a terrible consumer not to have known this) and noticed my interest rate on purchases is over 20%! On my LL Bean VISA, it is less than 10%. After reading all the articles on how to streamline your debt and reduce expenses, I thought I would give it a shot and call to see if I could get it lowered. Well, guess what? I can't.

The woman on the phone informed me that not only could they not offer me a better interest rate, but they would respect my decision to close the card! Not even, we are very sorry to hear that after ten years you are going to close this account, let us send you some Target coupons to offset the fact that we can't work with you. Just, "Ok. See ya!"

I had been considering keeping it only to use at Target to get the 5% off. I may be cutting off my nose to spite my face, but they can keep their 5%. That new store is weird anyway. I can't find anything anymore, and I cannot come to terms with eating meat bought at Target.

And in other news, B is doing better in school!! :::knock wood:: He now has a 75 in English and a 77 in chemistry, and all the other grades are 80 and above!! Let's just hope he can hold steady and let's see what the PSATs show. This math tutoring center, though expensive, I think was necessary and is going to help him in a lot of ways. So I feel pretty good about that, at least. And he enjoys going and his grade has come up considerably in just two weeks. He's also planning to try the swim team this year so he's been doing their dry land workouts and coming home sore and happy. I hope he likes it. It will be good for him to be part of a group activity at school.

So this weekend I plan to spend cleaning the house tomorrow, to see if I can do it. I'm really having strong reservations about using the woman who wants me to pay her in cash and always have a bag of clean rags for her, along with about $100 in cleaning supplies each week. And she won't clean under anything, so it all has to be picked up and put away. I'll see how well I do and then maybe cancel her before she starts. I might anyway, because at this point in my life I resent being told that I have to wash rags and go to the bank for cash so my cleaning lady doesn't have to. If I had all this spare time I wouldn't need a cleaning lady! I can barely keep up on my own laundry!