I didn’t work out this morning. I needed to but I didn’t. I woke up with every intention of doing so but Internet trolls – no, not the cute ones with the big, colorful hair who sing and dance to “Can’t Stop the Feeling” in my favorite animated movie of last year but ugly-hearted, mean-spirited creeps – decided to attack me overnight on a forum where I shared my poor Century Link experience and I had to try to defend myself. I also had to tend to a few unpaid item cases on eBay. Why in the world do so many people bid on items only to later vanish from the face of the earth? That is not a hypothetical question. I would really like an answer.
Anyway, after all of that, I quickly bathed and then headed out to pick up donations to the food ministry for which I volunteer. By the way, did you know that they have Unicorn Frappuccinos at Starbucks? Well, they did. After one day, they have vanished like those aforementioned eBay bidders. I also ran into Wal-Mart to buy whole corn for my chickens before arriving back at home to eat breakfast – some salad. Shortly thereafter, my internet connection went down, proving that whatever “fixes” were employed yesterday did not work. I texted the Century Link tech, carefully choosing my words so that I did not get barked at again, and a while later he said he would bring by a new modem and build a new line from my house to the central office.
Working with an intermittent connection, I quickly went to work to book a guest for Breakthrough Entertainment’s Earth Day Special. Unfortunately, the timing was just not going to work out with the filmmakers of that documentary I had told you about yesterday so I reached out to the publicist for the Hawaii Film Challenge and, a short time later, I confirmed creative director Kara Fujita Jovic for Saturday’s show. I then walked to the dog park to continue to work on the “foxtail” situation and attempt to please people who clearly should never have moved to the desert because their expectations are entirely unrealistic. Nonetheless, I rode around and around on a miniature tractor…
After becoming a bit dizzy doing that, I used a hose to spray down the artificial turf with water and performed a few other tasks around the park for a couple of hours before returning home to watch “The Chew” which, once again, did not feature any recipes that I was enticed enough to try out for myself (although who doesn’t want maple bacon cupcakes). But I still have a stack of previously features recipes that I intend to try – including Cleveland baked beans and grilled German potato salad. I may even make some Swedish meatballs. However, I have already found a winner in the chili spaghetti (ala Cincinnati’s Skyline Chili) I whipped up yesterday and enjoyed again today for lunch…
After lunch, I watched “Days of Our Lives” and, since my Internet was still down, simply relaxed. Because I had basically blown my diet between last weekend’s birthday/anniversary and Easter parties and that mouth-watering chili spaghetti, I decided I may as well also enjoy a few Strawberry Nut M&M’s…
My Internet briefly reconnected a couple of times – just long enough for me to check e-mail – but, for the most part, I was disconnected from the outside world. (I am old school and do not have a mobile device with data service – just a slider keyboard phone for calling and texting.) After a while, two Century Link techs arrived and worked on my line, one at my house and the other on a telephone pole in the distance…
I do not know exactly what they did but I saw a bunch of wires being moved around and some copper being snipped. I was also given a new modem, just to cover all of our bases, and a wish of good luck for my connection to remain permanently stable – or at least stable through the weekend since both techs are off until Monday. I then set up my new modem and rewarded myself with a half of a pomegranate…
Once I had consumed my pomegranate (and my shirt was sufficiently splattered with sticky red pomegranate juice), I got to work on all of my Internet tasks that I had had to put on the back burner all day due to my disconnection from the rest of the world. One of these tasks was tending to an eBay bidder who won an item – a Ghost Face action figure from “Scream” – and left positive feedback only to later decide he wanted me to refund his shipping costs due to the plastic peeling off of the cardboard backing (even though I had clearly stated that in the item description). I have not yet decided how I want to deal with his blatant scheme to get away with a discount but I alleviated my aggravation with a Thomas’ Bacon Buttermilk Pancake English Muffin…
It tasted… like a buttered buttermilk pancake slathered with maple syrup. The bacon bits were there but the bacon flavor was not. But the best parts were that the mouth-feel was amazing (ok, that sounds at least a little weird) and the aftertaste was authentic to the experience of gobbling up a plate of pancakes. I finished my day with the most recent episode of “Big Brother Canada” and using my writing skills to help a dear friend of mine prepare a very important speech.
