You're Doing It Wrong

This is Roxy. She lives in Marysville and her dad is the one that gave me my epic tomato plants.

Here’s a not great photo of the latest harvest. More about my tomatoes in the days to come.

Not long ago I was here complaining about everyone doing it wrong. I have been yanking my hair out dealing with banks and technology. I don’t see how this is easier than writing a check and putting it in an envelope.

We had one more hour long phone call to get Bob added to my bank account. Then they Fedexed a debit card which I stole and hid because he’s not going to use it. Then I finally linked the savings for overdraft which was the point of this whole stupid thing.

Meanwhile, I tried ride-sharing. I have ride-shared when other people paid but this was the first time I paid and I was not impressed since they charged me double what they charge ticket partner after a Timbers match. I complained and they explained I had to pay a premium rate. Which again, ticket partner has never been charged a premium rate. So I asked them to close my account.

*Then* they credited me the premium charge. I still closed the account and then got a fraud alert on my credit card, which is through Bob’s pile of money. The alert went to him. I didn’t know and I got an alarm from my cellphone carrier that I hadn’t paid.

ARGH.

I spent an hour of my Saturday morning unraveling that mess.

The next door neighbor issue is that somehow, even with a tight housing market, we lucked out and now the everybody-crash-here house is next door. I’ve counted at least 10 different vehicles parked over there in 3 weeks. They are mostly silent except from 9pm to 4am on Friday and Saturday nights. If we keep the windows closed it’s okay. But it’s the tiny wedge in the calendar when we can enjoy open windows. So far no one has been especially friendly with some pointed eye contact avoidance. I’m still hoping we can get to know them and maybe it will be okay.

I’m not even going to start on the legal book sellers. I was able to do my business with a phone call which would have been helpful to know before I was in the endless looping chaos of their websites.

I have a VERY IMPORTANT soccer match starting in 1 minute so I have to run.

My Urban Indian Romance Book #1 is on a free promotion right now. If you or someone you know might like this info, links are here.

Just in case anyone missed my endless social media flogging, I had a new story come out this week. Here’s the link:

Skinny Charlie’s Orbiting Teepee.

And in other author news, I finally have an announcement about book 2: It will be here September 5.

I finished the last bits today and put it all together. I need to double check the files and take a break to rest my eyeballs in a gentle saline solution. I’ve been staring at the screen too long.

I’ve been dying to write a long rant about my bank but since I had a story come out, I didn’t want that to be the top post. But now that the furor has passed, I’ll go ahead.

Every couple has to figure out their own way to share money. Our general attitude is that it’s both of our money, but we keep it in separate piles. For my main separate pile I had Bob on the savings but I opened the checking later so he wasn’t on that. (Spoiler alert: he’s still not on it.)

The bank sent me a notice that they automatically enrolled me in their overdraft protection program. I did not want to be automatically enrolled in anything. Since I have a savings account, I wanted that to be my overdraft protection.

I logged into that account and commenced with the clicking and the clicking. It kept telling me I don’t have a savings account.

Later, when I had time to dick around, I phoned. They said, you have to have the same people on the checking account and the savings account if you want to link them.

So I logged back in and commenced with the clicking until I sent Bob an invitation to join the checking account. He received no invite. We did this for two rounds before we found time to both sit in the room at the same time and phone them again.

Turns out Bob did not have an email account linked to the savings so who knows where they were sending the invitation.

We were on the phone with them for 45 minutes. I have no idea what the problem was. Something something credit card. We don’t have a credit card. Bob reading off endless data for their files. We finally begged to end the call, we have lives.

Last I checked, Bob is still pending to be added to the account. I still don’t know what’s what. All this so I can use my savings as overdraft protection. Number of purchases I have overdrafted in my lifetime: 0.

I have many more people who are doing it wrong for future stories. Terrible legal booksellers? New story on that. The rental house next door? Funny you should ask.

More details to come.

My sweetheart has a medical procedure this week that requires dietary prep including 24 hours of fasting later this week. Pray for us!

I’ve got the okay to stay home tomorrow during the eclipse-o-pocalypse. Everyone enjoy your moon on sun action.

We had a couple of baby raccoons hanging out several weeks ago. I took both these terrible pictures from inside the house. They make cute little chittering sounds. I was a little worried about them wandering around during the daylight but it’s nature. I’m sure they’re fine. Someone has been chewing on the pumpkins out front.

The write-a-thon is finished. I finished everything I wanted to but not as much as I hoped.

I’m not going to work too hard next month on new stuff but I will be prepping all the stuff to get the book published.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed. Last figure I saw they’d raised over $18,000.