greenbelt mourns
G: Our dear friend Joyce
Abell passed away this week, Thursday night. She'd been suffering
fairly badly from complications from diabetes for a couple of years. I
went with Dorian and Cam to visit her in the hospital on Wednesday. She
was barely conscious but looked at us when we'd say her name, and nod
to answer questions. According to her husband John, it was her decision
to not have dialysis, and she went peacefully.
Joyce worked at Beautiful Day (health food store) when I started there.
She was wonderful to work with. She made the place feel like home. She
was kind, generous, knowledgeable, supportive, and any other good words
you can think of. She was a great cook and prepared the specials in the
cafe there for years. We worked there together for about 6 years I
think.
She was a bridesmaid in our wedding and was head chef for the feast
that was prepared. She introduced me to Greenbelt and helped us find
the GHI home we live in now and love. She was incredibly active in and
cared tremendously about her community. She was a treasure and will be
sorely missed.
A couple of weeks ago we were contacted by someone from a show called
Wild Weddings on TLC. He found our wedding page and wondered if we had
a video, which we do, and sent it to him, and now on Saturday, August 5
at 10pm, an episode will air with a bit from our wedding in it! They
said our segment will be towards the end of the show. We don't have
cable so we'll be looking for someone to watch it with. They've
promised us a dvd of the show as well. (And yes, they gave us $!)
Saturday: John was going to go with Lori to a party at a
cabin far away thrown by one of her work mates. I was going to a baby
shower that afternoon so I wasn't going to go to the cabin. So when our
friend Susan sent an email about a canoe trip on the Anacostia, early
in the morning (for me), I decided to go. I figured John and Lori were
going to be getting up early and leaving too.
So I got up and went, carpooling with another Greenbelter, Beth. It was
an educational tour with the Anacostia Watershed Society starting at
the Bladensburg Waterfront Park and going south into DC a little ways.
Since there had been a lot of rain recently the water was filthy with
gunk and litter, plastic bottles mostly. Despite that, we saw lots of
wildlife like ospreys (and their nest), great blue herons, cormorants,
kingfishers, a little green heron, etc., and learned a lot about how
the river is in danger from various threats, mostly pollution. The good
news is there are things being done that are improving the condition of
the Anacostia, but much more needs to be done. Like, RECYCLE for
goodness sake!
When I got home around 1pm John and Lori were still here, they had
decided not to go. I went back out to shop for a gift for the shower,
at Target where Jill and Aaron were registered. I knew I would run into
someone else there shopping for the shower, and I did, Andy C. We
couldn't find anything on the registry so we picked out a baby monitor
and went in on it together.
It was a big BBQ and I brought marinated carrots to make into bunny
dogs (use a marinated, grilled carrot in place of a hot dog, and it's
pretty darn good). I also had a veggie brat. The rain held off until
late afternoon so it was a pretty nice day to hang out in the yard. I
made myself a lot of lemonade with mint. Inspired by mojitos!
Sunday: In the evening I went over to Izolda's for a tea party.
Kristin M. and Jess were there, and Lori and Petra showed up later.
Kristin painted shoes with glitter, I played with sculpy and some molds
for it that I had given to Izolda, Jess colored her hair with Jazz, and
Petra hennaed hers. Lori tried the sculpy but the stuff she was using
was too soft and wouldn't come out of the molds right. I had been using
stuff that was a bit dried out so it worked pretty well. The tea was
good, too.
J: I've spent the week
working, poking, riding to Franklin's, picking mushrooms (agaricus
campestris), and helping Rich build furniture. I also went to
Jill's baby shower and I was most impressed by how it was more of a fun
outdoor party than an odd baby shower (and yes, baby showers are odd).
down to the wire
Dear Verizon,
Golly, your service sucks.
After years of torment I had to switch to a cable modem because my DSL
connection kept dropping out, especially after big rainstorms.
Occasionally if I complained enough your technicians would tell me to
disconnect every phone in my house, reboot the router, etc. and
sometimes (rarely) they'd send someone over to poke around and report
that everything was fine. Then I'd get dropouts again.
When I finally switched to cable internet access - which costs a bit
more but is faster and far more reliable (at least in this area) -
my internet service improved but of course the phone troubles did
not end. Our phone lines get awful static and background hums, usually
correlating well with higher rainy spells.
From the looks of them, it's obvious to me that our outside phone lines
are old and falling apart and need to be replaced. Why this fact isn't
just as obvious to your company's technicians is beyond me, but I
suspect that they probably notice the old, crusty, taped-up lines with
rusty connections, and they inform their supervisors. Somewhere up the
chain of command someone says, "Nope, costs us too much," and another
customer gets to continue to hear static and crossed calls.
When the nice Verizon customer service representative asked me why I
was switching from DSL to cable, I told her about the troubles we've
been through and about Verizon's inability to fix their own lines. I
got a nice form letter a few weeks later asking me to use DSL again. It
would have been more appropriate to get a letter saying that the lines
would be fixed or replaced, but Verizon stayed the course and continued
to provide horrible quality telephony over an ancient infrastructure.
Our phone troubles have continued.
Well, I've had it with the ongoing static. I've had it with these
gigantic monthly bills, each one containing a plethora of cryptic line
items. With the kind of money I shell out to you, Verizon, I should get
a high-fidelity stereo videophone system that fixes itself. Instead, I
feel like I've been scammed on a monthly basis for many years now.
Which brings up long distance charges—
What's the deal
with long distance? In this century phone calls inside one's own
country shouldn't cost extra for the separation between two phones.
It's a cakewalk for the electrons.
It appears to me that Verizon has grown large, powerful, hungry,
unreasonable and unreachable. Large and powerful isn't so bad, but it
often leads to unreasonable and unreachable. So I've decided to cut
myself off of your grid.
I'm switching to a nice little cable phone company called
Sunrocket, and I'm desperately
hoping that Sunrocket isn't purchased by Verizon, because right now
Sunrocket seems to be moving in the right direction. They charge a flat
fee - 200 bucks a year including tax - with no additional service fees,
maintenance costs, or long distance charges. Their phones are
configurable over the internet, and I can retrieve voice mail over the
internet, build call blocking lists, and make speed dial lists too.
I'll get a better quality phone system with more options for at least a
third of the cost of your static hum.
There will, of course, be a few transitional hurdles as Sunrocket moves
our old number to their plan. For example we won't have 911 service for
about a month, tops. But I'm used to that - lots of times when it rains
we effectively have no 911 service, because none of our phones work.
We'll keep a cell phone at the ready. After we get our 911 service we
plan to test Sunrocket for a while and then cut the outside phone lines
running into our house. That way we can use the inside phone jacks for
extra phones connected to the cable. Woo hoo!
I'm thinking that many of our friends and neighbors might follow suit
as they read this letter on our website, follow our reports on the
quality of our new cable phone service, and figure out how much they'll
save by switching to a nicer company like Sunrocket. In the meantime I
hope your stockholders enjoy their shares while they can, before
Verizon consumes itself completely under its own bloated bureaucracy
and inflated ineptitude.
As for this little bitty customer, you've got about another month or
two to hope that Sunrocket falls flat (but it's working well so far)
and then I'm cutting you off. Thanks!
Hummmmm crackle crackle zzzzzzzztsts *click*.
:-j
