Tuesday afternoon break

* I want to get at least 2 more Pomodoros (fundamentally: an hour) of reading done, but the lawn service working next door is leaf-blowing the clippings generated from the very tall lawn (out into the street and onto my drive; the unofficial motto of my state is "It's someone else's problem now!")

* I had to run out this morning and I'm thinking maybe later this afternoon/early evening I will just go for a drive again because I am LOSING the ability to drive, it's been so long. I just want to take a drive out into the country on some little-traveled roads and see some other locations and also run my car a little.

Anyway: Friday afternoon the local channels were messed up and also Cartoon Network (and WTBS, though I don't watch that one often enough to realize it) had dropped out of the lineup. I called, and their automated service said "there's an outage and we're working on it" and by Saturday morning the local channels were back, but Cartoon Network was not.

Of course, over a holiday weekend, customer support is essentially nil, even in times not "unprecedented." So I tried calling this morning - "Your wait will be.....more than 30 minutes."

LOL, no. So I tried the online chat. Got told to do a power cycle. (Oh, like I hadn't already tried that five times; that is always the first thing I try). But I dutifully tried again. No go. The tech tried a remote reset. Nope.

"Well, we can make an appointment for someone to come out, or you can go to the local office and exchange the box"

Someone in my house? In this economy pandemic? Heck no. So I said I'd go down. And anyway: I'd not paid my bill yet, I could deliver the check in person.

So I grabbed my keys and door opener and phone and purse and mask (and let me tell you, five things is almost more than I can remember to grab) and headed down there. They are on the south side of town - the "poorer" side, most people will tell you. (I have delivered Meals on Wheels there* and the houses yes are small and kind of run down). The big thing is the streets are terrible - giant potholes. I suppose the city doesn't feel that area is as important.
 
(*I wonder what they're doing for the people who need that. I hope some arrangement has been made, what with churches and other volunteer groups who typically do it here kind of in....suspension for now. And also, you don't want to send a different person every day to the home of someone who might be medically fragile)

So anyway. I got down there, masked up, went in - I was the only person there. They had plexiglas shields up for the woman working there. She took the check, and I explained to her the problem, and she checked for me. Then asked me, "What channels aren't working"

Cartoon Network, I said.

Oh, she said. That one's not been working. We finally got through today, techs are working on it.

The help desk - the online chat - is apparently not local (there's a New York address for the headquarters now; it used to be Shawnee, and it gives me a bit of pause now; I guess they've been bought out YET AGAIN and I suspect the customer service may well go downhill because the further away a headquarters is from its customers, the less they tend to matter).

I sighed, and thanked her, and she said "Well, let me check here" and tuned the big tv they have on - and yes, the channel was not working. I said "Okay, I'll just go home and put it all back together and wait" and she said "hopefully today it will be fixed" She also said "At least with the same box you won't have to call them to arrange to have it activated" so that's a plus. I thanked her again** and headed back home. (Well, at least I got the bill paid and saved a stamp)


(**There was a story by a guy - I don't remember where, so I can't link it - but he wrote about being masked up at a garden center and being kind of rude to the guy bringing the mulch, and he realized the mask was giving him license to be rude, presumably because he felt no one could see his face to recognize him? Anyway, I find I go the opposite way with that - with the mask on my face, it is very - LITERALLY - in my face that "there's a pandemic on, and the folks you interact with in offices and stores are on the front lines of dealing with it, you better be extra polite")

Put the whole thing back together (power cord, cable in to the box, HDMI cable to the tv). Turned it on. Tried Cartoon Network. There it was. So I guess she was right about "it should be back today"

At least tonight I should be able to catch the usual re-run of Bob's Burgers I watch before bed.

* Been picking away at different things - no one thing is finished but at least I'm pulling out stalled projects and working on them. I got the "Stroopwaffel Socks" I hadn't worked on in over a year (the last time I worked on them was Christmas 2018, I think - and some of these long term projects, I have to will myself NOT to think about how my life was different in so many ways when I last touched them). And I have a simple sockyarn hat almost up to the point of decreasing for the crown. I want to start new things - I bought the big "Interweave 100" book from Powell's when someone somewhere else was talking about "I hope Powell's survives!" and I though "I hope that, too" and decided to order a few books I might want through them. I want to work down on my stash - there's a two-color sockweight-yarn hat I want to make, if I can find two solid or solid-ish colors that work well together. And I found an old freebee book that came with one of the Brit-Knit magazines I used to buy, that had a lace sock pattern called "Octarine" in it, and I found a skein of a dark blue-green yarn I want to use for those....but I'm trying to be disciplined and at least finish a few small things first. And I started working on the horse pillowcases again; I'm filling in the outline on the foal on the fist one and I think after that I will do the foal right away on the second one, and then the mother horse....so I can keep the right colors. (The mother horse on this one is actually in three subtly different shades of brown, but it's not too bad if you don't look closely).

* And the guy is done and gone, so it's back to reading the history of probability with a little bit of actual math thrown in (this book is different from what I expected, but I will still finish it....)

 * ETA: Another thing, weirdly, that helps through this, is  grabbing one of my stuffed toys and either holding it or having it in my vicinity while I read or sit here. Actually, having something squished up against my sternum (without being TMI - the ones that are narrow enough to fit between my breasts- which are kind of spread out, i don't exactly have cleavage....tends to work best, and the one I picked today is the right size).

Also when I sleep - I've been trying to sleep on my back as much as I can because it's better for my hips - but having something on my chest that I can hold helps. It sounds so silly and yet - I figure it doesn't hurt anyone, there's no side effect to it (like there might be with sleep-aid medications) and it does make me feel better. I've even been jokingly posting a "Stuffie of the Day" on Twitter, cycling through some of the ones I have (spoiler alert: I have a lot)

Today's stuffie is the Cheese-kun (Pizza Hut Japan's current or maybe former mascot) that I made an amigurumi of from a pattern on Ravelry. (Apparently he also featured in an anime, as a toy mascot of one of the characters)