Blink Blink

This morning I was awakened at too-damn-early by a strange alarm.  Apparently, my new phone is tied not only to the weather alerts, but the whole damn WEA - Wireless Emergency Alert system.  It was an Amber Alert - which is cool, except it was an alert for St. Louis County... specifically St. Louis the city... which is 300-ish miles from here.  If that dude who took the kid was looking to hide, there is no way in hell he would head here.  He'd stick out like an infected toe.  

You know, they really need to work on some rational method of releasing alerts.  I get alerts for St. Louis, but not for the cities in Arkansas which are way closer and far more likely for me to be able to do anything about them.  Take a weather alert.  I get alerts and sure, they're all for my county, but I'm in the extreme corner of the county and most of the alerts are for locations 30-45 minutes away from here.  But I don't get alerts for the counties to the southwest or south of here because those are in a different state.  Unfortunately, more often than not, the weather is coming from that direction and headed our way.  

I know I'm asking a lot when I ask for rational methods and reasonable ways to address things.  Especially when the government is involved.  But this really shouldn't be that difficult.  The damn phone system sends an alert from the towers.  It can't be based on phone number, because my cell phone number is still CO and I don't get alerts for CO.  Maybe if they sent an alert out only through those towers most likely to be in the area of the actual problem...  Then I would be more likely to receive all the alerts I actually need rather than alerts for places I have no damn connection to.

Of course, all this seems to be handled by FEMA and we all know what a good job they do.  :eyeroll:  These days anything that has 'federal' in its name is a crapshoot.  Oh, who am I kidding?  Any government or governing acronym is iffy.  

Anyway, I'm tired and I'm cranky.  At least I don't have it as bad as a local friend of mine who, after being awakened by the same alert, shut her phone off and then ended up oversleeping, giving her 10 minutes to get her kids ready for school before the bus arrived.  

Oh, and the reason for the Amber Alert was found safe with family members twenty minutes after the alert woke us up.  I feel so much better about being awakened for that alert now.  Not.

Be Warned: I'm Cranky

Late last month, we cancelled our trash service with Republic because they'd jacked up our rates again.  For the umpteenth time since they took over our service a couple years ago.  During my cancellation phone call, the gal informed me they were charging us $30 to come pick up their container.  I was suitably pissed and told her no.  When they took over our service after buying out our previous trash company, they never said anything about anything to us.  We had no contract with the old service and no contract with the new company.  They're the ones who stopped by and removed our old container and replaced it with one of theirs.  After much wrangling, I finally agreed to $15 just to be done with it.  They said they'd pick up the container on the 7th.  Hubs put it out to the road on the night of the 6th, just in case they came early.  No one showed.  Hubs called again and was told someone had stopped by but we didn't have our container out.  Umm... whoever said that was a lazy, no good, lying sack of crap who most likely didn't want to drive all the way out here for one container.  Mom was the office manager for a trash company for 13 years, so I know how some of those guys can be.  Anyway, they set up a new pickup time and actually came.  Friday, the bill for my container pickup fee arrives and they've tacked on a $5 fine for not having the container out.  GAH!  I'll be calling them today.  :flexes claws and bears fangs:

We were awakened in the middle of the night by a particularly large and loud crack of thunder.  It's been booming and raining ever since.  Pouring rain.  Deluge rain.  It's January for pitysakes.  

I'm ditching my PO box, so if any of you have that address, shitcan it.  I got a PO box because the newsletter services all require you to put an address at the end of your newsletter for some lame ass reason, and I didn't want the world at large to have my home address.  I haven't sent out a newsletter in forever and the only stuff I get in my box is junk mail and the two local papers, which we also get here at home.  At this point, having a PO box is just a waste of money.  

Since I haven't been sleeping, last night I figured why go to bed?  I played a little poker and then opened my manuscript to begin rewriting the beginning.  On a non-cranky note, it went well.  Duke is sounding more like Duke now.  Of course, it would've helped if I'd had a firm idea of who the MC was when I wrote the beginning.  :shrug:  The words come when they come and we fix them later.

I did eventually go to bed.  I was tired.  And then I laid in bed for an hour or so before I fell asleep.  The story of my life right now.  I broke down and bought some ZzzQuil, but I haven't tried it yet.  Stuff like that messes me up for days afterward.  I don't have time to be messed up for days right now.  When the not-sleeping makes me more messed up than I would be if I took the stuff, then I'll probably break down and take it.  For now, I'm still functional.  Just tired and cranky.

Thursday This n That

Adapt dammit!  Whether you want to or not. 

I've been up since 3:30.  This does not bode well for human interaction.  And I have to go to Wallyworld today.  

Lucky for Hubs, he is exempt from my crankiness.  He and Mom are the only ones with that exemption.  The cat doesn't care.

I read a really awesome book this week.  It was a British suspense/thriller.  I need to coax some money out of my budget to buy the next book.  

Unfortunately, I got my new jacked-up health insurance bill this morning.  They added an additional $50 a month.  A month.  That's more money per month than I've made this year selling books, btw.  And I never use the damn insurance.  Seriously.  Never.  I only have it in case something bad happens.  If I'd taken all the premiums I've paid and never used over the years and put that money into a savings account, I'd probably have enough to pay for major surgery out of pocket.  Sheesh.

As I told Mom yesterday, don't get me started or we'll be here all day.

Yesterday, I saw a bald eagle.

No sign of Pierre the skunk since that one time.  I hope he's okay.  I mean, I'm glad he's not stinking up the joint, but I don't want anything bad to happen to him.

Send positive thoughts out to my BFF's great niece.  She's fourteen and they just discovered she has a brain tumor.  =o(  Come to think of it, send positive thoughts to her and her whole family.  It hasn't been the best of years for them.

It hasn't been the best of years for most of us, I'd say.  Sure, not as bad as the above, but we're each struggling with all of this in our own ways.  Hang in there.  By your fingertips or the skin of your teeth if you have to, but hang in there.  :hugs:

Sorry to be such a downer this morning.  Don't say I didn't warn you.